Patriarchal Palestine, Canaan and the Canaanites before the Israelitish Conquest; with a map

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PATRIARCHAL
PALESTINE

CANAAN AND TEIE CANJANITES BEFORE
THE ISRAELITISH CONQUEST

BY THE

REV. A. H. SAYCE

PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY, OXFORD

WITH A MAP

REVISED EDITION

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

northumberland avenue, w.c. ; 43, queen victoria street, b.c.

Brighton : 129, North Street

New York: K. S. GORHAM

1912

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE TRACT COMMITTEE

PREFACE

A few years ago the subject-matter of the present
volume might have been condensed into a few pages.
Beyond what we would gather from the Old Testa-
ment, we knew but little about the history and geo-
graphy of Canaan before the age of its conquest by
the Israelites. Thanks, however, to the discovery and
decipherment of the ancient monuments of Babylonia
and Assyria, of Egypt and of Palestine, all this is
now changed. A flood of light has been poured upon
the earlier history of the country and its inhabitants,
and though we are still only at the beginning of our
discoveries we can already sketch the outlines of
Canaanitish history, and even fill them in here and
there.

Throughout I have assumed that in the narrative of
the Pentateuch we have history and not fiction. Indeed
the archaeologist cannot do otherwise. Monumental
research is making it clearer every day that the scep-
ticism of the so-called "higher criticism " is not justi-
fied in fact. Those who would examine the proofs of
this must turn to my book on The Higher Criticism
and the Verdict of the Monuments. There I have
written purely as an archaeologist, who belongs to no
theological school, and consequently readers of the
work must see in it merely the irreducible minimum of
confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the Old
Testament with which Oriental archaeology can be
5

6 PREFACE

satisfied. But it is obvious that this irreducible
minimum is a good deal less than what a fair-minded
historian will admit. The archaeological facts support
the traditional rather than the so-called "critical"
view of the age and authority of the Pentateuch, and
tend to show that we have in it not only a historical
monument whose statements can be trusted, but also
what is substantially a work of the great Hebrew
legislator himself.

For those who "profess and call themselves Chris-
tians," however, there is another side to the question
besides the archaeological. The modern "critical"
views in regard to the Pentateuch are in violent con-
tradiction to the teaching and belief of the Jewish
Church in the time of our Lord, and this teaching and
belief has been accepted by Christ and His Apostles,
and inherited by the Christian Church. It is a teach-
ing and belief which lies at the root of many of the
dogmas of the Church, and if we are to reject or
revise it, we must at the same time reject and revise
historical Christianity. It is difficult to see how we
can call ourselves Christians in the sense which the
term has borne for the last eighteen hundred years,
and at the same time repudiate or modify, in accord-
ance with our individual fancies, the articles of faith
which historical Christianity has maintained every-
where and at all periods. For those who look beyond
the covers of grammars and lexicons, the great prac-
tical fact of historical Christianity must outweigh all
the speculations of individual scholars, however in-
genious and elaborate they may be. It is for the
individual to harmonize his conclusions with the
immemorial doctrine of the Church, not for the
Church to reconcile its teaching with the theories of

PREFACE 7

the individual. Christ promised that the Spirit of
God should guide His Apostles and their followers
into "all truth," and those who believe the promise
cannot also believe that the "Spirit of Truth" has
been at any time a Spirit of illusion.

Oriental archaeology, at all events is on the side of
those who see in the Hebrew patriarchs real men of
flesh and blood, and who hold that in the narratives
of the Pentateuch we have historical records many of
which go back to the age of the events they describe.
Archaeological discoveries have been crowding upon
us, of late years, thick and fast, many of them revolu-
tionary, and without exception they have been on the
side of tradition and against the conclusions of the
modern critic. The advocates of subjective criticism
would do well to ponder this fact.

A. H. SAYCE.

THE KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLONIA
DURING THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.

Dynasties XV., XVI., and XVII.— Hyksos or Shepherd-kings (from
Manetho).

Dynasty XV.

reigned

i. Salatis

2. Beon, or Bnon

3. Apakhnas, or Pakhnan

4. Apdphis I. .

5. Yanias or Annas

6. Assis .
Of the Sixteenth Dynasty nothing is know n. Of the Seventeenth the monuments

have given us the names of Apdphis II. (Aa-user-Ra) and Apophis III.
(Aa-ab-taui-Ra), in whose reign the war ot independence began under the
native prince of Thebes, and lasted for four generations.

Dynasty XVIII.—

iths.

1. Neb-pehuti-Ra, Alimes (more than 20 years).

2. Ser-ka-Ra, Amon-hotep L, his son (20 years 7

months. )

3. Aa kheper-ka-Ra, Thothmes I., his son, and queen

Amen-sit.

4. Aa-kheper-n-Ra, Thothmes II., his son, and wife

Hatshepsu I. (more than 9 years).

5. Khnum-Amon, Hatshepsu II., Ma-ka-Ra his sister

(more than 16 years).

6. Ra-men-Kheper, Thothmes III., her brother (54

years, 11 months, 1 day, from March 20, B.C. 1503
to Feb. 14, B.C. 1449).

7. Aa-khepru-Ra, Amon-hotep II., his son (more than

S years).

8. Men-khepru-Ra, Thothmes IV, his son (more than 7

years).

9. Neb-ma-Ra, Amon-hotep III., his son (more than 35

years), and queen Teie.
10. Nefer-khepru-Ra, Amon-hotep IV. , Khu-n-Aten (also

called Khuriya), his son (more than 17 years).
n. Ankh-khepru-Ra and queen Meri Aten.

12. Tut-ankh-Amon Khepru-neb-Ra, and queen Ankh-

nes-Amon.

13. Aten- Ra-nefer-nefru-mer- Aten.

14. Ai kheper-khepru-ar-ma-Ra, and queen Thi (more

than 4 years).

15. Hor-m-hib Mi-Amon Ser-khepru-ka (more than 3

years).

9

Manetho.
Amosis.
Amenophis I.

Chebron.

Amensis.

Misaphris.

Misphragmuthosis.

Touthmosis.

Amenophis II.

Horos.

Akherres.
Rathotis.

IO

LIST OF BABYLONIAN KINGS

Ammenephthes.
Sethos Ramesses.

Dynasty XIX.—
i. Men-pehuti-R;i, Ramessu I. (more than 2 years).

2. Men-ma-Ra, Scti I., Mer-n-Ptah 1. (more than 27

years), his son.

3. User-ma-Ra, Sotep-n-Ra, Ramessus II., Mi-Amon

(B.C. 1348 — 1281), his son.

4. Mer-n-Ptah II., Hotep-hi-ma Ba-n-Ra, Mi-Amon,

his son.

5. User-khepru-Ra, Seti II., Mcr-n-Ptah III., his

brother.

6. Amon-mesu Hik-An Mer-Kha-Ra Sotep-n-Ra, Amenemes.

usurper.

7. Khu-n-Ra Sotep-n-Ra, Mer-n-Ptah IV., Si-Ptah Thuoris.

(more than 6 years), and queen Ta-user.

Dynasty XX.—

1. Set-nekt, Merer-Mi-Amon (recovered the kingdom from the Phoenician

Arisu).

2. Ramessu III., Hik-An, his son (more than 32 years).

3. Ramessu IV., Hik-Ma Mi-Amon (more than 11 years).

4. Ramessu V., User-Ma-s-Kheper-Ra Mi-Amon (more than 4 years).

5. Ramessu VI., Neb-Ma-Ra Mi-Amon Amon-hir-khopesh-f (Ramessu Meii-

Tum, a rival king in Northern Egypt).

6. Ramessu VII., At-Amon User-ma-Ra Mi-Amon.

7. Ramessu VIII., Set-hir-khopesh-f Mi-Amon User-ma-Ra Khu-n-Amon.

8. Ramessu IX., Si-Ptah S-kha-n-Ra Mi-Amon (19 years).

9. Ramessu X., Nefer-ka-Ra Mi-Amon Sotep-n-Ra (more than 10 years).
10. Ramessu XI., Amon-hir-khopesh-f Kheper-ma-Ra Sotep-n-Ra.

n. Ramessu XII., Men-ma-Ra Mi-Amon Sotep-n-Ptah Kba-m-Uas (more
than 27 years).

Dynasty I. of Babylon —

1. Samu-abi 14 years, B.C 2225.

2. Sumu-la-ilu, his son, 36 years.

3. Zabu, his son, 14 years.

4. Abil-Sin, his son, 18 years.

5. Sin-muballidh, his son, 20 ye.irs.

6. Khammu-rabi, his son, 43 years

(at first under the sovereignty
of Chedorlaomer, the Elamite ;
by the conquest of Eri-Aku and
the Ela mites he unites Baby-
lonia, B.C. 2092).

7. Samsu-iluna, his son, 38 years.

8. Ebisum, or Abi-shua, his son, 28

years.

9. Ammi-ditana, his son, 37 years.

10. Ammi-zaduga, his son, 21 years.

11. Samsu-ditana, his son, 31 years.
Dynasty II. of Uru-azagga (partly

contemporary with Dynasty I.).

1. Anman, 51 (or 60) years.

2. Ki-nigas, 55 years.

3. Damki-ili-su, 46 years.

4. Iskipal, 15 years.

5. Sussi, his brother, 27 years.

6. Gul-kisar, 55 years.

7. Kirgal-daramas, his son, 50

years.

8. A-dara-kalama, his son, 28 years.

9. A-kur-du-ana, 26 years.

10. Melamma-kurkura, 6 years.

11. Bel-ga[mil ?], 9 years.
Dynasty III., of the Kassites, B.C.

1761—

1. Gandis, or Gaddas, 16 years.

2. Agum-Sipak, his son, 22 years.

3. Guya-Sipak, his son 22 years.

4. Ussi, his son, 8 years.

5. Adu-medas, ... years.

6. Tazzi-gurumas, ... years,

7. Agum-kak-rimi, his son,

years.

14. Kallimma-sin.i

The following order of succession is taken from Dr. Hilprecht,.

LIST OF BABYLONIAN KINGS

1 1

It Kudur-Bel.

16. Sagarakti-buryas, his son.

17. Kuii-galzu I.

18. Kara-indas.

19. Burna-buryas, his nephew, B.C.

1400.

20. Kara-Khardas, sonofKaraindas.

21. Nazi-bugas, or Su-zigas, an

usurper.

22. Kuri-galzu II., son of Burna-

buryas, 2 ... years.

23. Nazi-Maruttas, his son, 26 years.

24. Kadasman-Turgu, his son, 17

years.

25. Kadasman-Burias, his son, 2

years.

26. Kudur-Ellil, 6 years.

27. Saga-rakti-suryas, 13 years.

28. Kastilias, his son, 8 years.

29. Bel-nadin-sumi, 1 year 6 months.

30. Kadasman-Kharbe, 1 year 6

months.

31. Rimmon-nadin-sunii, 6 years.

32. Rimmon-sum-utsur, 30 years (in-

cluding 7 years of occupation
of Babylon by the Assyrian
king, Tiglath-Ninip).

33. Meli-Sipak, 15 years.

34. Merodach-baladan I., his son, 13

years.

35. Zamama-nadin-sunii I., 1 year.

36. Bel-sum iddin, 3 years.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

LISTS OF DYNASTIES
I. THE LAND .
II. THE PEOPLE

III. THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN, AND THE EGYPTIAN

CONQUEST ....

IV, THE PATRIARCHS . .
V. EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN

VI. CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION

APPENDIX

INDEX

PAGE

5

9

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3°

47
M3
176
209
246
249

PAIRIARCHAL PALESTINE

CHAPTER I

THE LAND

Patriarchal Palestine ! There are some who
would tell us that the very name is a misnomer.
Have we not been assured by the German critics and
their English disciples that there were no patriarchs
and no Patriarchal Age ? And yet, the critics
notwithstanding, the Patriarchal Age has actually
existed. While criticism, so-called, has been busy
in demolishing the records of the Pentateuch, archae-
ology, by the spade of the excavator and the patient
skill of the decipherer, has been equally busy in
restoring their credit. And the monuments of the
past are a more solid argument than the guesses and
prepossessions of the modern theorist. The clay
tablet and inscribed stone are better witnesses to the
truth than literary tact or critical scepticism. That
Moses and his contemporaries could neither read nor
write may have been proved to demonstration by the
critic ; yet nevertheless we now know, thanks to archae-
ological discovery, that it would have been a miracle
if the critic were right. The Pentateuch is, after all,
what it professes to be, and the records it contains
are history and not romance.

14 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

The question of its authenticity involves issues more
serious and important than those which have to do
merely with history or archaeology. We are some-
times told indeed, in all honesty of purpose, that it is
a question of purely literary interest, without influence
on our theological faith. But the whole fabric of the
Jewish Church in the time of our Lord was based upon
the belief that the Law of Moses came from God, and
that this God "is not a man that He should lie."
And the belief of the Jewish Church was handed on
to the Christian Church along with all its con-
sequences. To revise that belief is to revise the
dogmas of the Christian Church as they have been
held for the last eighteen centuries ; to reject it utterly
is to reject the primary document of the faith into
which we have been baptized.

It is not, however, with theological matters that
we are now concerned. Patriarchal Palestine is for
us the Palestine of the Patriarchal Age, as it has been
disclosed by archaeological research, not the Palestine
in which the revelation of God's will to man was to
be made. It is sufficient for us that the Patriarchal
Age has been shown by modern discovery to be a fact,
and that in the narratives of the Book of Genesis we
have authentic records of the past. There was indeed
a Patriarchal Palestine, and the glimpses of it that
we get in the Old Testament have been illustrated
and supplemented by the ancient monuments of the
Oriental world.

Whether the name of Palestine can be applied to
the country with strict accuracy at this early period
is a different question. Palestine is Philistia, the land
of the Philistines, and the introduction of the name
was subsequent to the settlement of the Philistines in

THE LAND 15

Canaan and the era of their victories over Israel. As
we shall see later on, it is probable that they did not
reach the Canaanitish coast until the Patriarchal Age
was almost, if not entirely, past. Their name does
not occur in the cuneiform correspondence which was
carried on between Canaan and Egypt in the century
before the Exodus, and they are first heard of as
forming part of that great confederacy of northern
tribes which attacked Egypt and Canaan in the days
of Moses. But, though the term Canaan would doubt-
less be more correct than Palestine, the latter has
become so purely geographical in meaning that we
can employ it without reference to history or date. Its
signification is too familiar to cause mistakes, and it
can therefore be used proleptically, just as the name
of the Philistines themselves is used proleptically in
the twenty-first chapter of Genesis. Abimelech was
king of a people who inhabited the same part of the
country as the Philistines in later times, and were
thus their earlier representatives.

The term "Palestine," then, is used geographically
without any reference to its historical origin. It
denotes the country which is known as Canaan in the
Old Testament, which was promised to Abraham and
conquered by his descendants. It is the land in which
David ruled and in which Christ was born, where the
prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and the
Christian Church was founded.

Shut in between the Desert of Arabia and the
Mediterranean Sea on the east and west, it is a narrow
strip of territory, for the most part mountainous,
rugged, and barren. Northward the Lebanon and
Anti-Lebanon come to meet it from Syria, the Anti-
Lebanon culminating in the lofty peaks and precipi-

16 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

tous ravines of Mount Hermon (9383 feet above the
level of the sea), while Lebanon runs southward till
it juts out into the sea in its sacred headland of
Carmel. The fertile plain of Esdraelon of Megiddo
separates the mountains of the north from those of
the south. These last form a broken plateau between
the Jordan and the Dead Sea on the one side and the
Plain of Sharon and the sea-coast of the Philistines
on the other, until they finally slope away into the
arid desert of the south. Here, on the borders of the
wilderness, was Beersheba, the southern limit of the
land in the days of the monarchy, Dan, its northern
limit, lying far away to the north at the foot of
Hermon, and not far from the sources of the Jordan.

Granite and gneiss, overlaid with hard dark sand-
stone and masses of secondary limestone, form, as it
were, the skeleton of the country. Here and there, at
Carmel and Gerizim, patches of the tertiary num-
mulite of Egypt make their appearance, and in the
plains of Megiddo and the coast, as well as in the
"Ghor" or valley of the Jordan, there is rich alluvial
soil. But elsewhere all is barren or nearly so, cultiva-
tion being possible only by terracing the cliffs, and
bringing the soil up to them from the plains below
with slow and painful labour. It has often been said
that Palestine was more widely cultivated in ancient
times than it is to-day. But if so, this was only
because a larger area of the cultivable ground was
tilled. The plains of the coast, which are now given
over to malaria and Beduin thieves, were doubtless
thickly populated and well sown. But of ground
actually fit for cultivation there could not have been
a larger amount than there is at present.

It was not in any way a well-wooded land. On the

THE LAND 17

slopes of the Lebanon and of Carmel, it is true, there
were forests of cedar-trees, a few of which still survive,
and the Assyrian kings more than once speak of cut-
ting them down or using them in their buildings at
Nineveh. But south of the Lebanon forest trees
were scarce ; the terebinth was so unfamiliar a sight
in the landscape as to become an object of worship
or a road-side mark. Even the palm grew only on
the sea-coast or in the valley of the Jordan, and the
tamarisk and sycamore were hardly more than shrubs.

Nevertheless when the Israelites first entered
Canaan, it was in truth a land "flowing with milk
and honey." Goats abounded on the hills, and the
bee of Palestine, though fierce, is still famous for its
honey-producing powers. The Perizzites or "fel-
lahin " industriously tilled the fields, and high-walled
cities stood on the mountain as well as on the plain.

The highlands, however, were deficient in water.
A few streams fall into the sea south of Carmel, but
except in the spring, when they have been swollen
by the rains, there is but little water in them. The
Kishon, which irrigates the plain of Megiddo, is a
more important river, but it, too, is little more than a
mountain stream. In fact, the Jordan is the only
river in the true sense of the word which Palestine
possesses. Rising to the north of the Waters of
Merom, now called Lake Huleh, it flows first into the
Lake of Tiberias, and then through a long deep valley
into the Dead Sea. Here at a depth of 1293 feet below
the level of the sea it is swallowed up and lost ; the
sea has no outlet, and parts with its stagnant waters
through evaporation alone. The evaporation has
made it intensely salt, and its shores are consequently
for the most part the picture of death.

18 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

In the valley of the Jordan, on the other hand,
vegetation is as luxuriant and tropical as in the forests
of Brazil. Through a dense undergrowth of canes
and shrubs the river forces its way, rushing forward
towards its final gulf of extinction with a fall of 670
feet since it left the Lake of Tiberias. But the dis-
tance thus travelled by it is long in comparison with
its earlier fall of 625 feet between Lake Huleh and
the Sea of Galilee. Here it has cut its way through
a deep gorge, the cliffs of which rise up almost sheer
on either side.

The Jordan has taken its name from its rapid fall.
The word comes from a root which signifies "to
descend," and the name itself means "the down-flow-
ing." We can trace it back to the Egyptian monu-
ments of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties.
Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, has
inscribed it on the walls of Karnak, and Ramses III.,
who must have reigned while the Israelites were still
in the wilderness, enumerates the "Yordan" at
Medinet Habu among his conquests in Palestine.
In both cases it is associated with "the Lake of
Rethpana," which must accordingly be the Egyptian
name of the Dead Sea. Rethpana might correspond
with a Hebrew Reshpon, a derivative from Resheph,
the god of fire. Canaanite mythology makes the
sparks his "children " (Job v. 7), and it may be, there-
fore, that in this old name of the Dead Sea we have
a reference to the overthrow of the cities of the plain.

Eastward of the Dead Sea and the Jordan the
country is again mountainous and bare. Here were
the territories of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe
of Manasseh ; here also were the kingdoms of Moab
and Ammon, of Bashan and the Amorites. Here, too,

THE LAND 19

was the land of Gilead, south of the Lake of Tiberias
and north of the Dead Sea.

We can read the name of Muab or Moab on the
base of the second of the six colossal statues which
Ramses II. erected in front of the northern pylon of
the temple of Luxor. It is there included among his
conquests. The statue is the only Egyptian monu-
ment on which the name has hitherto been found.
But this single mention is sufficient to guarantee its
antiquity, and to prove that in the days before the
Exodus it was already well known in Egypt.

To the north of Moab came the kingdom of
Ammon, or the children of Ammi. The name of
Ammon was a derivative from that of the god Ammi
or Ammo, who seems to have been regarded as the
ancestor of the nation, and "the father of the children
of Ammon" was accordingly called Ben-Ammi, "the
son of Ammi " (Gen. xix. 38). Far away in the north,
close to the junction of the rivers Euphrates and
Sajur, and but a few miles to the south of the Hittite
stronghold of Carchemish, the worship of the same
god seems to have been known to the Aramaean tribes.
It was here that Pethor stood, according to the
Assyrian inscriptions, and it was from Pethor that the
seer Balaam came to Moab to curse the children of
Israel. Pethor, we are told, was "by the river
(Euphrates) of the land of the children of Ammo,"
where the word represents a proper name (Num. xxii.
5). To translate it "his people," as is done by the
Authorized Version, makes no sense. On the
Assyrian monuments Ammon is sometimes spoken of
as Beth-Ammon, "the house of Ammon," as if
Ammon had been a living man.

b 2

20 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Like Moab, Ammon was a region of limestone
mountains and barren cliffs. But there were fertile
fields on the banks of the Jabbok, the sources of which
rose not far from the capital, Rabbath.

North of Gilead and the Yarmuk was the volcanic
plateau of Bashan, Ziri-Basana, or "the Plain of
Bashan," as it is termed in the cuneiform tablets of
Tel el-Amarna. Its western slope towards the Lakes
of Merom and Tiberias was known as Golan (now
Jolan) ; its eastern plateau of metallic lava was Argob,
"the story" (now El Lejja). Bashan was included in
the Hauran, the name of which we first meet with on
the monuments of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal.
To the north it was bounded by Ituraea, so named
from Jetur, the son of Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 15), the
road through Ituraea (the modern Jedur) leading to
Damascus and its well-watered plain.

The gardens of Damascus lie 2260 feet above the
sea. In the summer the air is cooled by the mountain
breezes; in the winter the snow sometimes lies upon
the surface of the land. Westward the view is closed
by the white peaks of Anti-Lebanon and Hermon ;
eastward the eye wanders over a green plain covered
with the mounds of old towns and villages, and inter-
sected by the clear and rapid streams of the Abana
and Pharphar. But the Abana has now become the
Barada, or "cold one," while the Pharphar is the
Nahr el-Awaj.

The Damascus of to-day stands on the site of the
city from which St. Paul escaped, and "the street
which is called Straight " can still be traced by its
line of Roman columns. But it is doubtful whether
the Damascus of the New Testament and of to-dav
is the same as the Damascus of the Old Testament.

THE LAND 21

Where the walls of the city have been exposed to
view, we see that their Greek foundations rest on the
virgin soil ; no remains of an earlier period lie beneath
them. It may be, therefore, that the Damascus of
Ben-Hadad and Hazael is marked rather by one
of the mounds in the plain than by the modern
town. In one of these the stone statue of a man, in
the Assyrian style, was discovered a few years ago.

An ancient road leads from the peach-orchards of
Damascus, along the banks of the Abana and over
Anti-Lebanon, to the ruins of the temple of the Sun-
god at Baalbek. The temple as we see it is of the age
of the Antonines, but it occupies the place of one
which stood in Heliopolis, the city of the Sun-god,
from immemorial antiquity. Relics of an older epoch
still exist in the blocks of stone of colossal size which
serve as the foundation of the western wall. Their
bevelling reminds us of Phoenician work.

Baalbek was the sacred city of the Bek'a, or "cleft"
formed between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon by the
gorge through which the river Litany rushes down
to the sea. Once and once only is it referred to in
the Old Testament. Amos (i. 5) declares that the
Lord "will break the bar of Damascus and cut off the
inhabitant from Bikath-On "—the Bek'a of On. The
name of On reminds us that the Heliopolis of Egypt,
the city of the Egyptian Sun-god, was also called On,
and the question arises whether the name and worship
of the On of Syria were not derived from the On of
Egypt- For nearly two centuries Syria was an
Egyptian province, and the priests of On in Egypt
may well have established themselves in the "cleft"
valley of Ccele-Syria.

From Baalbek, the city of "Baal of the Bek'a," the

22 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

traveller makes his way across Lebanon, and under
the snows of Jebel Sannin — nearly 9000 feet in height
— to the old Phoenician city of Beyrout. Beyrout is
already mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of Tel-el-
Amarna under the name of Beruta of Beruna, "the
cisterns." It was already a seaport of Phoenicia, and
a halting-place on the high road that ran along the
coast.

The coastland was known to the Greeks and
Romans as Phoenicia, "the land of the palm." But
its own inhabitants called it Canaan, "the lowlands."
It included not only the fringe of cultivated land by
the sea-shore, but the western slopes of the Lebanon
as well. Phoenician colonies and outposts had been
planted inland, far away from the coast, as at Laish,
the future Dan, where ''the people dwelt careless,"
though "they were far away from the Sidonians," or
at Zemar (the modern Sumra) and Arka (still called
by the same name). The territory of the Phoenicians
stretched southward as far as Dor (now Tanturah),
where it met the advance guard of the Philistines.

Such was Palestine, the promised home of Israel.
It was a land of rugged and picturesque mountains,
interspersed with a few tracts of fertile country, shut
in between the sea and the ravine of the Jordan, and
falling away into the waterless desert of the south. It
was, too, a land of small extent, hardly more than
one hundred and sixty miles in length and sixty miles
in width. And even this amount of territory was
possessed by the Israelites only during the reigns of
David and Solomon. The sea-coast with its harbours
was in the hands of the Phoenicians and the Philis-
tines, and though the Philistines at one time owned
an unwilling allegiance to the Jewish king, the

THE LAND 23

Phoenicians preserved their independence, and even
Solomon had to find harbours for his merchantmen,
not on the coast of his own native kingdom, but in
the distant Edomite ports of Eloth and Ezion-geber,
in the Gulf of Aqabah. With the loss of Edom Judah
ceased to have a foreign trade.

The Negeb, or desert of the south, was then, what
it still is, the haunt of robbers and marauders. The
Beduin of to-day are the Amalekites of Old Testament
history; and then, as now, they infested the southern
frontier of Judah, wasting and robbing the fields of
the husbandman, and allying themselves with every
invader who came from the south. Saul, indeed,
punished them, as Romans and Turks have punished
them since; but the lesson is remembered only for a
short while : when the strong hand is removed, the
"sons of the desert" return again like the locusts to
their prey.

It is true that the Beduin now range over the loamy
plains and encamp among the marshes of Lake Huleh,
where in happier times their presence was unknown.
But this is the result of a weak and corrupt govern-
ment, added to the depopulation of the lowlands.
There are traces even in the Old Testament that in
periods of anarchy and confusion the Amalekites
penetrated far into the country in a similar fashion.
In the Song of Deborah and Barak, Ephraim is said
to have contended against them', and accordingly
"Pirathon in the land of Ephraim" is described as
being "in the mount of the Amalekites" (Judges xii.
15). In the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, too,
there is frequent mention of the "Plunderers" by
whom the Beduin, the Shasu of the Egyptian texts,
must be meant, and who seem to have been generally

24 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

ready at hand to assist a rebellious vassal or take part
in a civil feud.

Lebanon the "white" mountain, took its name from
its cliffs of glistening limestone. In the early days of
Canaan it was believed to be the habitation of the
gods, and Phoenician inscriptions exist dedicated to
Baal-Lebanon, "the Baal of Lebanon." He was the
special form of the Sun-god whose seat was in the
mountain-ranges that shut in Phoenicia on the east,
and whose spirit was supposed to dwell in some
mysterious way in the mountains themselves. But
there were certain peaks which lifted themselves up
prominently to heaven, and in which consequently the
sanctity of the whole range was as it were concen-
trated. It was upon their summits that the worshipper
felt himself peculiarly near the God of heaven, and
where therefore the altar was built and the sacrifice
performed. One of these peaks was Hermon, "the
consecrated," whose name the Greeks changed into
Harmonia, the wife of Agenor the Phoenician. From
its top we can see Palestine spread as it were before
us, and stretching southwards to the mountains of
Judah. The walls of the temple, which in Greek times
took the place of the primitive altar, can still be traced
there, and on its slopes, or perched above its ravines,
are the ruins of other temples of Baal — at Der el-
'Ashair, at Rakleh, at Ain Hersha, at Rasheyat
el-Fukhar— all pointing towards the central sanctuary
on the summit of the mountain.

The name of Hermon, "the consecrated," was but
an epithet, and the mountain had other and more
special names of its own. The Sidonians, we are told
(Deut. iii. 9), called it Sirion, and another of its titles
was Sion (Deut. iv. 48), unless indeed this is a corrupt

THE LAND 25

reading for Sirion. Its Amorite name was Shenir
(Deut. iii. 9), which appears as Saniru in an Assyrian
inscription, and goes back to the earliest dawn of
history. When the Babylonians first began to make
expeditions against the West, long before the birth of
Abraham, the name of Sanir was already known. It
was then used to denote the whole of Syria, so that
its restriction to Mount Hermon alone must have been
of later date.

Another holy peak was Carmel, "the fruitful field,"
or perhaps originally "the domain of the god." It
was in Mount Carmel that the mountain ranges of the
north ended finally, and the altar on its summit could
be seen from afar by the Phoenician sailors. Here the
priests of Baal called in vain upon their god that he
might send them rain, and here was "the altar of the
Lord " which Elijah repaired.

The mountains of the south present no striking peak
or headland like Hermon and Carmel. Even Tabor
belongs to the north. Ebal and Gerizim alone, above
Shechem, stand out among their fellows, and were
venerated as the abodes of deity from the earliest
times. The temple-hill at Jerusalem owed its sanctity
rather to the city within the boundaries of which it
stood than to its own character. In fact, the neigh-
bouring height of Zion towered above it. The moun-
tains of the south were rather highlands than lofty
chains and isolated peaks.

But on this very account they played an important
part in the history of the world. They were not too
high to be habitable; they were high enough to
protect their inhabitants against invasion and war.
"Mount Ephraim," the block of mountainous land of
which Shechem and Samaria formed the centre, and

26 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

at the southern extremity of which the sacred city of
Shiloh stood, was the natural nucleus of a kingdom,
like the southern block of which Hebron and Jerusa-
lem were similarly the capitals. Here there were
valleys and uplands in which sufficient food could be
grown for the needs of the population, while the cities
with their thick and lofty walls were strongholds diffi-
cult to approach and still more difficult to capture.
The climate was bracing, though the winters were
cold, and it reared a race of hardy warriors and indus-
trious agriculturists. The want of water was the only
difficulty ; in most cases the people were dependent
on rain-water, which they preserved in cisterns cut
out of the rock.

This block of southern mountains was the first and
latest stronghold of Israel. In constituted, in fact,
the kingdoms of Samaria and Judah. Out of it, at
Shechem, came the first attempt to found a monarchy
in Israel, and thus unite the Israelitish tribes; out of
it also came the second and more successful attempt
under Saul the Benjamite and David the Jew. The
Israelites never succeeded in establishing themselves
on the sea-coast, and their possession of the plain of
Megiddo and the southern slopes of the Lebanon was
a source of weakness and not of strength. It led
eventually to the overthrow of the kingdom of
Samaria. The northern tribes in Galilee were
absorbed by the older population, and their country
became "Galilee of the Gentiles," rather than an
integral part of Israel. The plain of Megiddo was
long held by the Canaanites, and up to the last was
exposed to invasion from the sea-coast. It was, in
fact, the battle-field of Palestine. The army of the
invader or the conqueror marched along the edge of

THE LAND 27

the sea, not through the rugged paths and dangerous
defiles of the mountainous interior, and the plain of
Megiddo was the pass which led them into its midst.
The possession of the plain cut off the mountaineers
of the north from their brethren in the south, and
opened the way into the heart of the mountains them-
selves.

But to possess the plain was also to possess chariots
and horsemen, and a large and disciplined force. The
guerilla warfare of the mountaineer was here of no
avail. Success lay on the side of the more numerous
legions and the wealthier state, on the side of the
assailant and not of the assailed.

Herein lay the advantage of the kingdom of Judah.
It was a compact state, with no level plain to defend,
no outlying territories to protect. Its capital stood
high upon the mountains, strongly fortified by nature
and difficult of access. While Samaria fell hopelessly
and easily before the armies of Assyria, Jerusalem
witnessed the fall of Nineveh itself.

What was true of the later days of Israelitish history
was equally true of the age of the patriarchs. The
strength of Palestine lay in its southern highlands ;
whoever gained possession of these was master of the
whole country, and the road lay open before him to
Sinai and Egypt. But to gain possession of them was
the difficulty, and campaign after campaign was
needed before they could be reduced to quiet sub-
mission. In the time of the eighteenth Egyptian
dynasty Jerusalem was already the key to Southern
Palestine.

Geographically, Palestine was thus a country of
twofold character, and its population was necessarily
twofold as well. It was a land of mountain and plain,

28 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

of broken highlands and rocky sea-coast. Its people
were partly mountaineers, active, patriotic, and poor,
with a tendency to asceticism ; parly a nation of sailors
and merchants, industrious, wealthy, and luxurious,
with no sense of country or unity, and accounting
riches the supreme end of life. On the one hand, it
gave the world its first lessons in maritime exploration
and trade ; on the other it has been the religious
teacher of mankind.

In both respects its geographical position has aided
the work of its people. Situated midway between the
two great empires of the ancient Oriental world, it
was at once the high road and the meeting-place of
the civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia. Long
before Abraham migrated to Canaan it had been
deeply interpenetrated by Babylonian culture and
religious ideas, and long before the Exodus it had
become an Egyptian province. It barred the way to
Egypt for the invader from Asia; it protected Asia
from Egyptian assault. The trade of the world passed
through it and met it in ; the merchants of Egypt and
Ethiopia could traffic in Palestine with the traders of
Babylonia and the far East. It was destined by nature
to be a land of commerce and trade.

And yet while thus forming a highway from the
civilization of the Euphrates to that of the Nile, Pales-
tine was too narrow a strip of country to become itself
a formidable kingdom. The empire of David scarcely
lasted for more than a single generation, and was due
to the weakness at the same time of both Egypt and
Assyria. With the Arabian desert on the one side
and the Mediterranean on the other, it was impossible
for Canaan to develop into a great state. Its rocks
and mountains might produce a race of hardy warriors

THE LAND 29

and energetic thinkers, but they could not create a
rich and populous community. The Phoenicians on
the coast were driven towards the sea, and had to seek
in maritime enterprise the food and wealth which their
own land refused to grant. Palestine was essentially
formed to be the appropriator and carrier of the ideas
and culture of others, not to be itself their origin and
creator.

But when the ideas had once been brought to it they
were modified and combined, improved and general-
ized in a way that made them capable of universal
acceptance. Phoenician art is in no way original ; its
elements have been drawn partly from Babylonia,
partly from Egypt; but their combination was the
work of the Phoenicians, and it was just this com-
bination which became the heritage of civilized man.
The religion of Israel came from the wilderness, from
the heights of Sinai and the palm-grove of Kadesh,
but it was in Palestine that it took shape and devel-
oped, until in the fullness of time the Messiah was
born. Out of Canaan have come the Prophets and
the Gospel, but the Law which lay behind them was
brought from elsewhere.

CHAPTER II

THE PEOPLE

In the days .of Abraham, Chedor-laomer, king of
Elam and lord over the kings of Babylonia, marched
westward with his Babylonian allies, in order to
punish his rebellious subjects in Canaan. The in-
vading army entered Palestine from the eastern side
of the Jordan. Instead of marching along the sea-
coast, it took the line of the valley of the Jordan. It
first attacked the plateau of Bashan, and then smote
"the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim
in Ham, and the Emim in the plain of Kiriathaim."
Then it passed into Mount Seir, and subjugated the
Horites as far as El-Paran "by the wilderness."
Thence it turned northward again through the oasis
of En-mishpat or Kadesh-barnea, and after smiting
the Amalekite Beduin, as well as the Amorites in
Hazezon-tamar, made its way into the vale of Siddim.
There the battle took place which ended in the defeat
of the king of Sodom and his allies, who were carried
away captive to the north. But at Hobah, "on the
left hand of Damascus," the invaders were overtaken
by " Abram the Hebrew," who dwelt with his Amorite
confederates in the plain of Mamre, and the spoil they
had seized was recovered from them.

The narrative gives us a picture of the geography

and ethnology of Palestine as it was at the beginning

of the Patriarchal Age. Before that age was over it

had altered very materially; the old cities for the most

30

THE PEOPLE 31

part still remained, but new races had taken the place
of the older ones, new kingdoms had arisen, and the
earlier landmarks had been displaced. The Amalekite
alone continued what he had always been, the un-
tamable nomad of the southern desert.

Rephaim or "Giants " was a general epithet applied
to the prehistoric population of the country. Og, king
of Bashan in the time of the Exodus, was "of the
remnant of the Rephaim" (Deut. iii. u); but so also
were the Anakim in Hebron, the Emim in Moab, and
the Zamzummim in Ammon (Deut. ii. [I, 20). Doubt-
less they represented a tall race in comparison with
the Hebrews and Arabs of the desert ; and the Israel-
itish spies described themselves as grasshoppers
by the side of them (Numb. xiii. 33). It is possible,
however, that the name was really an ethnic one,
which had only an accidental similarity in sound
to the Hebrew word for "giants." At all events, in
the list of conquered Canaanitish towns which the
Pharaoh Thothmes III. of Egypt caused to be en-
graved on the walls of Karnak, the name of Astartu
or Ashteroth Karnaim is followed by that of
Anaurepa, in which Mr. Tomkins proposes to see
On-Repha, "On of the Giant(s)." In the close neigh-
bourhood in classical days stood Raphon or Raphana,
Arpha of the Dekapolis, now called Er-Rafeh, and in
Raphon it is difficult not to discern a reminiscence of
the Rephaim of Genesis.

Did these Rephaim belong to the same race as the
Emim and the Anakim, or were the latter called
Rephaim or " Giants " merely because they repre-
sented the tall prehistoric population of Canaan?
The question can be more easily asked than answered.
We know from the Book of Genesis that Amorites as

32 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

well as Hittites lived at Hebron, or in its immediate
vicinity. Abram dwelt in the plain of Mamre along
with three Amorite chieftains, and Hoham, king of
Hebron, who fought against Joshua, is accounted
among the Amorites (Josh x. i). The Anakim may
therefore have been an Amorite tribe. They held
themselves to be the descendants of Anak, an ancient
Canaanite god, whose female counterpart was the
Phoenician goddess Onka. But, on the other hand,
the Amorites at Hebron may have been intruders ; we
know that Hebron was peculiarly a Hittite city, and
it is at Mamre rather than at Hebron that the Amorite
confederates of Abram had their home. It is equally
possible that the Anakim themselves may have been
the stranger element; we hear nothing about them in
the days of the Patriarchs, and it is only when the
Israelites prepare to enter Canaan that they first make
their appearance upon the stage.

Og, king of Bashan, however, was an Amorite; of
this we are assured in the Book of Deuteronomy
(iii. 8), and it is further said of him that he only
"remained of the remnant of Rephaim." The expres-
sion is a noticeable one, as it implies that the older
population had been for the most part driven out.
And such, in fact, was the case. At Rabbath, the
capital of Ammon, the basalt sarcophagus of the last
king of Bashan was preserved ; but the king and his
people had alike perished. Ammonites and Israelites
had taken their place.

The children of Ammon had taken possession of
the land once owned by the Zamzummim (Deut. ii.
20). The latter are called Zuzim in the narrative of
Genesis, and they are said to have dwelt in Ham.
But Zuzim and Ham are merely faulty transcriptions

THE PEOPLE 33

from a cuneiform text of the Hebrew Zamzummim
and Ammon, and the same people are meant both in
Genesis and in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy also
the Emim are mentioned, and their geographical
position defined. They were the predecessors of the
Moabites, and like the Zamzummim, "a people great
and many and tall," whom the Moabites expelled
doubtless at the same time as that at which the Am-
monites conquered the Zamzummim. The "plain of
Kiriathaim," or "the two cities," must have lain south
of the Arnon, where Ar and Kir Haraseth were built.

South of the Emim, in the rose-red mountains of
Seir, afterwards occupied by the Edomites, came* the
Horites, whose name is generally supposed to be
derived from a Hebrew word signifying "a cave."
They have therefore been regarded as Troglodytes, or
cave-dwellers, a savage race of men who possessed
neither houses nor settled home. But it is quite pos-
sible to connect the name with another word which
means "white," and to see in them the representatives
of a white race. The name of Hor is associated with
Beth-lehem, and Caleb, of the Edomite tribe of
Kenaz, is called "the son of Hur " (i Chron. ii. 50,
iv. 4). There is no reason for believing that cave-
dwellers ever existed in that part of Palestine.

The discovery of the site of Kadesh-barnea is due
in the first instance to Dr. Rowlands, secondly to the
archaeological skill of Dr. Clay Trumbull. It is still
known as 'Ain Qadis, "the spring of Qadis," and
lies hidden within the block of mountains which rise
in the southern desert about midway between Mount
Seir and the Mediterranean Sea. The water still
gushes out of the rock, fresh and clear, and nourishes
the oasis that surrounds it. It has been marked out
c

34 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

by nature to be a meeting-place and "sanctuary" of
the desert tribes. Its central position, its security
from sudden attack, and its abundant supply of water
all combined to make it the En-Mishpat or "Spring
of Judgment," where cases were tried and laws
enacted. It was here that the Israelites lingered year
after year during their wanderings in the wilderness,
and it was from hence that the spies were sent out to
explore the Promised Land. In those days the moun-
tains which encircled it were known as "the mountains
of the Amorites " (Deut. i. 19, 20). In the age of the
Babylonian invasion, however, the Amorites had not
advanced so far to the south. They were as yet only
at Hazezon-tamar, the "palm-grove" on the western
shore of the Dead Sea, which a later generation called
En-gedi (2 Chron. xx. 2). En-Mishpat was still in
the hands of the Amalekites, the lords of "all the
country " round about.

The Amalekites had not as yet intermingled with
the Ishmaelites, and their Beduin blood was still
pure. They were the Shasu or "Plunderers" of the
Egyptian inscriptions, sometimes also termed the
Sitti, the Sute of the cuneiform texts. Like their
modern descendants, they lived by the plunder of
their more peaceful neighbours. As was prophesied
of Ishmael, so could it have been prophesied of the
Amalekites, that their "hand should be against every
man, and every man's hand against" them. They
were the wild offspring of the wilderness, and
accounted the first-born of mankind (Numb. xxiv. 20).

From En-Mishpat the Babylonian forces marched
northward along the western edge of the Dead Sea.
Leaving Jerusalem on their left, they descended into
the vale of Siddim, where they found themselves in

THE PEOPLE 35

the valley of the Jordan, and consequently in the land
of the Canaanites. As we are told in the Book of
Numbers (xiii. 29), while "the Amalekites dwell in the
land of the south, and the Hittites and the Jebusites
and Amorites in the mountains, the Canaanites dwell
by the sea and by the coast of Jordan."

The word Canaan, as we have seen, meant "the
lowlands," and appears sometimes in a longer, some-
times in a shorter form. The shorter form is written
Khna by the Greeks : in the Tel el-Amarna tablets
it is Kinakhkhi, while Canaan, the longer form, is
Kinakhna. It is this longer form which alone appears
in the hieroglyphic texts. Here we read how Seti I.
destroyed the Shasu or Amalekites from the eastern
frontier of Egypt to "the land of Kana'an," and
captured their fortress of the same name, which Col.
Conder has identified with Khurbet Kan'an near
Hebron. It was also the longer form which was pre-
served among the Israelites as well as among the
Phoenicians, the original inhabitants of the sea-coast.
Coins of Laodicea, on the Orontes, bear the inscrip-
tion, "Laodicea a metropolis in Canaan," and St.
Augustine states that in his time the Carthaginian
peasantry of Northern Africa, if questioned as to their
descent, still answered that they were "Canaanites."
(Exp. Epist. ad Rom. 13.)

In course of time the geographical signification of
the name came to be widely extended beyond its
original limits. Just as Philistia, the district of the
Philistines, became the comprehensive Palestine, so
Canaan, the land of the Canaanites of the coast and
the valley, came to denote the whole of the country
between the Jordan^ and the sea. It is already used
in this sense in the cuneiform correspondence of Tel
c 2

36 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

el-Amarna. Already in the century before the Exodus
Kinakhna or Canaan represented pretty nearly all
that we now mean by "Palestine." It was, in fact, the
country to the south of "the land of the Amorites; "
"the land of the Amorites" lay immediately to the
north of the Waters of Merom.

In the geographical table in the tenth chapter of
Genesis Canaan is stated to be the son of Ham and
the brother of Mizraim or Egypt. The statement
indicates the age to which the account must go back.
There was only one period of history in which Canaan
could be geographically described as a brother of
Egypt, and that was the period of the eighteenth and
nineteenth dynasties, when for a while it was a pro-
vince of the Pharaohs. At no other time was it closely
connected with the sons of Ham. At an earlier epoch
its relations had been with Babylonia rather than with
the valley of the Nile, and with the fall of the nine-
teenth dynasty the Asiatic empire of Egypt came
finally to an end.

The city of Sidon, we are further told, was the first-
born of Canaan. It claimed to be the oldest of the
Phoenician cities in the "lowlands" of the coast. It
had grown out of an assemblage of "fishermen's"
huts, and Said, the god of the fishermen, continued to
preside over it to the last. The fishermen became in
time sailors and merchant-princes, and the fish for
which they sought was the murex with its precious
purple dye. Tyre, the city of the "rock," which in
later days disputed the supremacy over Phoenicia with
Sidon, was of younger foundation. Herodotus was
told that the great temple of Baal Melkarth, "the city's
king," which he saw there, had been built twenty-
three centuries before his visit. But Sidon was still

THE PEOPLE 37

older, older even than Gebal, the sacred city of the
goddess Baaltis.

The wider extension of the name of Canaan brought
with it other geographical relationships besides those
of the sea-coast. Hittites and Amorites, Jebusites and
Girgashites, Hivites and the peoples of the southern
Lebanon, were all settled within the limits of the
larger Canaan, and were therefore accounted his sons.
Even Hamath claimed the right to be included in the
brotherhood. It is said with truth that "afterwards
were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad."

Hittites and Amorites were interlocked both in the
north and in the south. Kadesh, on the Orontes, the
southern stronghold of the Hittite kingdom of the
north, was, as the Egyptian records tell us, in the
land of the Amorites; while in the south Hittites and
Amorites were mingled together at Hebron, and
Ezekiel (xvi. 3) declares that Jerusalem had a double
parentage : its birth was in the land of Canaan, but
its father was an Amorite and its mother a Hittite.
Modern research, however, has shown that Hittites
and Amorites were races widely separated in character
and origin. About the Hittites we hear a good deal
both in the hieroglyphic and in the cuneiform inscrip-
tions. The Khata of the Egyptian texts were the
most formidable power of Western Asia with whom
the Egyptians of the eighteenth and nineteenth
dynasties had to deal. They were tribes of mountain-
eers from the ranges of the Taurus who had descended
on the plains of Syria and established themselves there
in the midst of an Aramaic population. Carchemish
on the Euphrates became one of their Syrian capitals,
commanding the high-road of commerce and war from
east to west. Thothmes III., the conqueror of West-

38 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

ern Asia, boasts of the gifts he received from "the
land of Khata the greater," so called, it would seem,
to distinguish it from another and lesser land of Khata
— that of the Hittites of the south.

The cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, in the
closing days of the eighteenth dynasty, represent the
Hittites as advancing steadily southward and men-
acing the Syrian possessions of the Pharaoh. Dis-
affected Amorites and Canaanites looked to them for
help, and eventually "the land of the Amorites" to
the north of Palestine fell into their possession. When
the first Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty attempted
to recover the Egyptian empire in Asia, they found
themselves confronted by the most formidable of
antagonists. Against Kadesh and "the great king of
the Hittites" the Egyptian forces were driven in vain,
and after twenty years of warfare Ramses II., the
Pharaoh of the Oppression, was fain to consent to
peace. A treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive,
was drawn up between the two rivals, and Egypt was
henceforth compelled to treat with the Hittites on
equal terms.

The Khatta or Khata of the Assyrian inscriptions
are already a decaying power. They are broken into
a number of separate states of kingdoms, of which
Carchemish is the richest and most important. They
are, in fact, in retreat towards those mountains of Asia
Minor from which they had originally issued forth.
But they still hold their ground in Syria for a long
while. There were Hittites at Kadesh in the reign of
David, Hittite kings could lend their services to Israel
in the age of Elisha (2 Kings vii. 6), and it was not
till 717 B.C. that Carchemish was captured by Sargon
of Assyria, and the trade which passed through it

THE PEOPLE 39

diverted to Nineveh. But when the Assyrians first
became acquainted with the coastland of the Mediter-
ranean, the Hittites were to such an extent the ruling
race there that they gave their name to the whole dis-
trict. Like "Palestine," or "Canaan," the term "land
of the Hittites" came to denote among the Assyrians,
not only Northern Syria and the Lebanon, but South-
ern Syria as well. Even Ahab of Israel and Baasha
the Ammonite are included by Shalmaneser II. among
its kings.

This extended use of the name among the Assyrians
is illustrated by the existence of a Hittite tribe at
Hebron in the extreme south of Palestine. Various
attempts have been made to get rid of the latter by
unbelieving critics, but the statements of Genesis are
corroborated by Ezekiel's account of the foundation
of Jerusalem. They are, moreover, in full harmony
with the monumental records. As we have seen,
Thothmes III. implies that already in his day there
was a second and smaller land of the Hittites, and
the great Babylonian work on astronomy contains
references to the Hittites which go back to the age
of Abraham.

Assyrian and Babylonian texts are not the only
cuneiform records which make mention of the
" Khata " or Hittites. Their name is found also on
the monuments of the kings of Ararat or Armenia
who reigned in the ninth and eighth centuries before
our era, and who had borrowed from Nineveh the
cuneiform system of writing. But the Khata of these
Vannic or Armenian texts lived considerably to the
north of the Hittites of the Bible and of the Egyptian
and Assyrian monuments. The country they in-
habited lay in eastern Asia Minor in the neighbour-

4o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

hood of the modern Malatiyeh. Here, in fact, was
their original home.

Thanks to the Egyptian artists, we are well
acquainted with the Hittite physical type. It was
not handsome. The nose was unduly protrusive,
while the chin and the forehead retreated. The cheeks
were square, with prominent bones, and the face was
beardless. In colour the Hittites were yellow-skinned,
with black hair and eyes. They seem to have worn
their hair in three long plaits which fell over the back
like the pigtail of a Chinaman, and they were dis-
tinguished by the use of boots with upturned toes.

We might perhaps imagine that the Egyptian
artists have caricatured their adversaries. But this is
not the case. Precisely the same profile of face, some-
times even exaggerated in its ugliness, is represented
on the Hittite monuments by the native sculptors
themselves. It is one of the surest proofs we possess
that these monuments, with their still undeciphered
inscriptions, are of Hittite origin. They belong to
the people whom Israelites, Egyptians, Assyrians,
and Armenians united in calling Hittites.

In marked contrast to the Hittites stood the Amor-
ites. They, too, are depicted on the walls of the
Egyptian temples and tombs. While the Hittite type
of features is Mongoloid, that of the Amorite is
European. His nose is straight and somewhat
pointed, his lips and nostrils thin, his cheek-bones
high, his mouth firm and regular, his forehead ex-
pressive of intelligence. He has a fair amount of
whisker, ending in a pointed beard. At Abu-Simbel
the skin is painted a pale yellow — the Egyptian
equivalent for white— his eyes blue, and his beard and
eyebrows red. At Medinet Habu, his skin, as Prof,

THE PEOPLE 4*

Petrie expresses it, is "rather pinker than flesh-
colour," while in a tomb of the eighteenth dynasty
at Thebes it is painted white, the eyes and hair being
a light red-brown.

The Amorite, it is clear, must be classed with the
fair-skinned, blue-eyed Libyans of the Egyptian
monuments, whose modern descendants are the
Kabyles and other Berber tribes of Northern Africa.
The latter are not only European in type, they claim
special affinities to the blond, "golden-haired" Kelt.
And their tall stature agrees well with what the Old
Testament has to tell us about the Amorites. They,
too, were classed among the Rephaim or "giants," by
the side of whom the Israelite invaders were but as
"grasshoppers."

While the Canaanites inhabited the lowlands, the
highlands were the seat of the Amorites (Num.
viii. 29). This, again, is in accordance with their
European affinities. They flourished best in the
colder and more bracing climate of the mountains,
as do the Berber tribes of Northern Africa to-day.
The blond, blue-eyed race is better adapted to endure
the cold than the heat.

Amorite tribes and kingdoms were to be found in
all parts of Palestine. Southward, as we have seen,
Kadesh-barnea was in "the mountain of the Amor-
ites," while Chedor-laomer found them on the western
shores of the Dead Sea. When Abraham pitched his
tent in the plain above Hebron, it was in the posses-
sion of three Amorite chieftains, and at the time of
the Israelitish conquest, Hebron and Jerusalem,
Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon were all Amorite (Josh.
x. 5). Jacob assured Joseph the inheritance of his
tribe should be in that district of Shechem which the

42 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

patriarch had taken "out of the hand of the Amorite"
(Gen. xlviii. 22), and on the eastern side of the Jordan
were the Amorite kingdoms of Og and Sihon. But
we learn from the Egyptian inscriptions, and more
especially from the Tel el-Amarna tablets, that the
chief seat of Amorite power lay immediately to the
north of Palestine. Here was "the land of the Amor-
ites," to which frequent reference is made by the
monuments, among the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon, from Hamath southward to Hermon. On
the east it was bounded by the desert, on the west by
the cities of Phoenicia.

In early days, long before the age of Abraham, the
Amorites must already have been the predominant
population in this part of Syria. When the Baby-
lonian king, Sargon of Akkad, carried his victorious
arms to the shores of the Mediterranean, it was against
"the land of the Amorites" that his campaigns were
directed. From that time forward this was the name
under which Syria, and more particularly Canaan,
was known to the Babylonians. The geographical
extension of the term was parallel to that of " Hit-
tites " among the Assyrians, of "Canaan " among the
Israelites, and of "Palestine" among ourselves. But
it bears witness to the important part which was
played by the Amorites in what we must still call the
prehistoric age of Syria, as well as to the extent of
the area which they must have occupied. (See
Appendix I.)

Of course it does not follow that the whole of this
area was occupied at one and the same time. Indeed
we know that the conquest of the northern portion of
Moab by the Amorite king Sihon took place only a
short time before the Israelitish invasion, and part

THE PEOPLE 43

of the Amorite song of triumph on the occasion has
been preserved in the Book of Numbers. "There is
a fire gone out of Heshbon," it said, "a flame from
the city of Sihon : it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and
the lords of the high places of Arnon. Woe to thee,
Moab ! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh : he
hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters,
into captivity, unto Sihon king of the Amorites." *
In the south again, the Amorites do not seem to have
made their way beyond Hazezon-Tamar, while the
Tel el-Amarna tablets made it probable that neither
Bashan nor Jerusalem were as yet Amorite at the time
they were written. It may be that the Amorite con-
quests in the south were one of the results of the fall
of the Egyptian empire and the Hittite irruption.

Between the Hittite and the Amorite the geo-
graphical table of Genesis interposes the Jebusite,
and the Book of Numbers similarly states that "the
Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in
the mountains." The Jebusites, however, were merely
the local tribe which in the early days of the Israel-
itish occupation of Canaan were in possession of
Jerusalem, and they were probably Hittite in origin
as well as race. At any rate there is no trace of them
in the cuneiform letters of Tel el-Amarna. On the
contrary, in these Jerusalem is still known only by
its old name of Uru-salim ; of the name Jebus there
is not a hint. But the letters show us that Ebed-
Kheba, the native king of Jerusalem and humble
vassal of the Pharaoh, was being hard pressed by his
enemies, and that, in spite of his urgent appeals for
help, the Egyptians were unable to send any. His
enemy were the Khabiri or "Confederates," about
1 Num. xxi. 28, 29.

44 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

whose identification there has been much discussion,
but who were assisted by the Hittite chief Labai and
his sons. One by one the towns belonging to the
territory of Jerusalem fell into the hands of his adver-
saries, and at last, as we learn from another letter,
Ebed-Kheba himself, along with his capital, was cap-
tured by the foe. It was this event, perhaps, which
made Jerusalem a Jebusite city. If so, we must see
in the enemies of Ebed-Kheba the Jebusites of the
Old Testament.

The Girgashite is named after the Amorite, but who
he may have been it is hard to say. In the Egyptian
epic composed by the court-poet Pentaur, to com-
memorate the heroic deeds of Ramses II. in his
struggle with the Hittites, mention is twice made of
"the country of Qarqish." It was one of those which
had sent contingents to the Hittite army. But it
seems to have been situated in Northern Syria, if not
in Asia Minor, so that unless we can suppose that
some of its inhabitants had followed in the wake of
the Hittites and settled in Palestine, it is not easy
to see how they could be included among the sons
of Canaan. The Hivites, whose name follows that
of the Girgashites, are simply the "villagers" or
fellahin as opposed to the townsfolk. They are thus
synonymous with the Perizzites, who take their place
in Gen. xv. 20, and whose name has the same signifi-
cation. But whereas the Perizzites were especially
the country population of Southern Palestine, the
Hivites were those of the north. In two passages,
indeed, the name appears to be used in an ethnic
sense, once in Gen. xxxvi. 2, where we read that Esau
married the granddaughter of "Zibeon the Hivite,"
and once in Josh. xi. 3, where reference is made to

THE PEOPLE 45

"the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh."
But a comparison of the first passage with a later part
of the chapter (vv. 20, 24, 25) proves that "Hivite"
is a corrupt reading for " Horite," while it is probable
that in the second passage "Hittite " ought to be read
for "Hivite."

The four last sons of Canaan represent cities, and
not tribes. Arka, called Irqat in the Tel el-Amarna
tablets, and now known as Tel 'Arqa, was one of the
inland cities of Phoenicia, in the mountains between
the Orontes and the sea. Sin, which is mentioned by
Tiglath-pileser III., was in the same neighbourhood,
as well as Zemar (now Sumra), which, like Arvad
(the modern Ruad) is named repeatedly in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence. It was at the time an
important Phoenician fortress, — "perched like a bird
upon the rock," — and was under the control of the
governor of Gebal. Arvad was equally important as
a seaport, and its ships were used for war as well as
for commerce. As for Hamath (now Hamah), the
Khamat and Amat of the Assyrian texts, it was
already a leading city in the days of the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty. Thothmes III. includes it among
his Syrian conquests under the name of Amatu, as
also does Ramses III. The Hittite inscriptions dis-
covered there go to show that, like Kadesh on the
Orontes, it fell at one time into Hittite hands.

Such, then, was the ethnographical map of Palestine
in the Patriarchal Age. Canaanites in the lowlands,
Amorites and Hittites in the highlands contended for
the mastery. In the desert of the south were the
Amalekite Beduin, ever ready to raid and murder
their settled neighbours. The mountains of Seir were
occupied by the Horites, while prehistodic tribes, who

46 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

probably belonged to the Amorite race, inhabited the
plateau east of the Jordan.

This was the Palestine to which Abraham migrated,
but it was a Palestine which his migration was
destined eventually to change. Before many genera-
tions had passed Moab and Ammon, the children of
his nephew, took the place of the older population of
the eastern table-land, while Edom settled in Mount
Seir. A few generations more, and Israel, too, entered
into its inheritance in Canaan itself. The Amorites
were extirpated or became tributary, and the valleys
of the Jordan and Kishon were seized by the invading
tribes. The cities of the extreme south had already
become Philistine, and the strangers from Caphtor
had supplanted in them the Avim of an earlier epoch.

Meanwhile the waves of foreign conquest had
spread more than once across the country. Canaan
had been made subject to Babylonia, and had received
in exchange for its independence the gift of Baby-
lonian culture. Next it was Egypt which entered
upon its career of Asiatic conquest, and Canaan for
a while was an Egyptian province. But the Egyptian
dominion in its turn passed away, and Palestine was
left the prey of other assailants, of the Hittites and
the Beduin, of the people of Aram Naharaim and the
northern hordes. Egyptians and Babylonians, Hit-
tites and Mesopotamians mingled with the earlier
races of the country and obliterated the older land-
marks. Before the Patriarchal Age came to an end,
the ethnographical map of Canaan had undergone
a profound change.

CHAPTER III

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN AND THE EGYPTIAN
CONQUEST

It is in the cuneiform records of Babylonia that we
catch the first glimpse of the early history of Canaan.
Babylonia was not yet united under a single head.
From time to time some prince arose whose conquests
allowed him to claim the imperial title of "king of
Sumer and Akkad," of Southern and Northern Baby-
lonia, but the claim was never of long duration, and
often it signified no more than a supremacy over the
other rulers of the country.

It was while Babylonia was thus divided into more
than one kingdom, that the first Chaldaean empire of
which we know was formed by the military skill of
Sargon of Akkad. Sargon was of Semitic origin, but
his birth seems to have been obscure. His father,
Itti-Bel, is not given the title of king, and the later
legends which gathered around his name declared
that his mother was of low degree, that his father he
knew not, and that his father's brother lived in the
mountain-land. Born in secrecy in the city of Azu-
pirani, "whence the elephants issue forth," he was
launched by his mother on the waters of the Euphrates
in an ark of bulrushes daubed with pitch. The river
carried the child to Akki the irrigator, who had com-
passion upon it, and brought it up as his own son.
So Sargon became an agriculturist and gardener like
his adopted father, till the goddess Istar beheld and
47

48 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

loved him, and eventually gave him his kingdom and
crown.

Whatever may have been the real history of
Sargon's rise to power, certain it is that he showed
himself worthy of it. He built himself a capital,
which perhaps was Akkad, near Sippara, and there
founded a library stocked with books on clay and
well provided with scribes. Works on astronomy
and terrestrial omens were compiled for it, the first
of which, in its later form, was translated into Greek
by Berossos in days long subsequent. But it was
as a conqueror and the founder of the first Semitic
empire in Western Asia that posterity chiefly remem-
bered him. He overthrew his rivals at home, and
made himself master of Northern Babylonia. Then
he marched into Elam on the east, and devastated its
fields. Next he turned his attention to the west.
Four times did he make his way to "the land of the
Amorites," until at last it was thoroughly subdued.
His final campaign occupied three years. The
countries "of the sea of the setting sun" acknow-
ledged his dominion, and he united them with his
former conquests into "a single " empire. On the
shores of the Mediterranean he erected images of
himself in token of his victories, and caused the spoil
of Cyprus "to pass over into the countries of the
sea." Towards the end of his reign a revolt broke
out against him in Babylonia, and he was besieged
in the city of Akkad, but he "issued forth and smote "
his enemies and utterly destroyed them. Then came
his last campaign against Northern Mesopotamia,
from which he returned with abundant prisoners and
spoil.

Sargon's son and successor was Naram-Sin, "the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 49

beloved of the Moon-god," who continued the con-
quests of his father. His second campaign was
against the land of Magan, the name under which
Midian and the Sinaitic peninsula were known to
the Babylonians. The result of it was the addition
of Magan to his empire and the captivity of its king.

The copper mines of Magan, which are noticed
in an early Babylonian geographical list, made its
acquisition coveted alike by Babylonians and Egypt-
ians. We find the Pharaohs of the first dynasty
already establishing their garrisons and colonies of
miners in the province of Mafkat, as they called it,
and slaughtering the Beduin who interfered with
them. The history of Naram-Sin shows that its
conquest was equally an object of the Babylonian
monarchs at the very outset of their history. But
whereas the road from Egypt to Sinai was short and
easy, that from Babylonia was long and difficult.
Before a Babylonian army could march into the
peninsula it was needful that Syria should be secure
in the rear. The conquest of Palestine, in fact, was
necessary before the copper mines of Sinai could fall
into Babylonian hands.

The consolidation of Sargon's empire in the west,
therefore, was needful before the invasion of the
country of Magan could take place, and the invasion
accordingly was reserved for Naram-Sin to make.
The father had prepared the way; the son obtained
the great prize — the source of the copper that was
used in the ancient world.

The fact that the whole of Syria is described in
the annals of Sargon as "the land of the Amorites,"
implies, not only that the Amorites were the ruling
population in the country, but also that they must

D

5o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

have extended far to the south. The "land of the
Amorites " formed the basis and starting-point for
the expedition of Naram-Sin into Magan ; it must,
therefore, have reached to the southern border of
Palestine, if not even farther. The road trodden by
his forces would have been the same as that which
was afterwards traversed by Chedor-laomer, and
would have led him through Kadesh-barnea. Is it
possible that the Amorites were already in possession
of the mountain-block within which Kadesh stood,
and that this was their extreme limit to the south ?

There were other names by which Palestine and
Syria were known to the early Babylonians, besides
the general title of "the land of the Amorites." One
of these was Tidanum or Tidnum ; another was Sanir
or Shenir. There was yet another, the reading of
which is uncertain, though it may be transcribed
Sarsar.

Mr. Boscawen has pointed out a coincidence that
is at least worthy of attention. The first Babylonian
monarch who penetrated into the peninsula of Sinai
bore a name compounded with that of the Moon-god,
which thus bears witness to a special veneration for
that deity. Now the name of Mount Sinai is similarly
derived from that of the Babylonian Moon-god Sin.
It was the high place where the god must have been
adored from early times under his Babylonian name.
It thus points to Babylonian influence, if not to the
presence of Babylonians on the spot. Can it have
been that the mountain whereon the God of Israel
afterwards revealed Himself to Moses was dedicated
to the Moon-god of Babylon by Naram-Sin the
Chaldaean conqueror ?

If such, indeed, were the case, it would have been

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 51

more than two thousand years before the Israelitish
exodus. Nabonidos, the last king of the later
Babylonian empire, who had a fancy for antiquarian
exploration, tells us that Naram-Sin reigned 3200
years before his own time, and therefore about 3750
B.C. The date, startlingly early as it seems to be,
is indirectly confirmed by other evidence, and Assyri-
ologists consequently have come to accept it as
approximately correct.

How long Syria remained a part of the empire
of Sargon of Akkad we do not know. But it must
have been long enough for the elements of Baby-
lonian culture to be introduced into it. The small
stone cylinders used by the Babylonians for sealing
their clay documents thus became known to the
peoples of the West. More than one has been found
in Syria and Cyprus which go back to the age of
Sargon and Naram-Sin, while there are numerous
others which are more or less barbarous attempts on
the part of the natives to imitate the Babylonian
originals. But the imitations prove that with the
fall of Sargon 's empire the use of seal-cylinders in
Syria, and consequently of documents for sealing,
did not disappear. That knowledge of writing, which
was a characteristic of Babylonian civilization, must
have been carried with it to the shores of the
Mediterranean.

The seal-cylinders were engraved, sometimes with
figures of men and gods, sometimes with symbols
only. Very frequently lines of cuneiform writing were
added, and a common formula gave the name of the
owner of the seal, along with those of his father and
of the deity whom he worshipped. One of the seal-
cylinders found in Cyprus describes the owner as an
d 2

52 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

adorer of "the god Naram-Sin." It is true that its
workmanship shows it to belong to a much later date
than the age of Naram-Sin himself, but the legend
equally shows that the name of the conqueror of
Magan was still remembered in the West. Another
cylinder discovered in the Lebanon mentions "the
Amorite Elohim," while a third from the same locality
bears the inscription : "Multal-ili, the son of Ili-isme-
anni, the worshipper of the god Nin-gis-zida." The
name of the god signified in the old pre-Semitic
language of Chaldaea "the lord of the upright horn,"
while it is worth notice that the names of the owner
and his father are compounded simply with the word
Hi or el, "god," not with the name of any special
divinity. Multal-ili means "A counsellor is God,"
Ili-isme-anni, "O my God, hear me! "

Many centuries have to elapse before the monu-
ments of Babylonia again throw light on the history
of Canaan. Somewhere about 2500 B.C., a high-priest
was ruling in a city of Southern Babylonia, under
the suzerainty of Dungi, the king of Ur. The high-
priest's name was Gudea, and his city (now called
Tel-loh by the Arabs) was known as Lagas. The
excavations made here by M. de Sarzec have brought
to light temples and palaces, collections of clay books
and carved stone statues, which go back to the early
days of Babylonian history. The larger and better
part of the monuments belong to Gudea, who seems
to have spent most of his life in building and restoring
the sanctuaries of the gods. Diorite statues of the
prince are now in the Louvre, and inscriptions upon
them state that the stone out of which they were made
was brought from the land of Magan. On the lap of
one of them is a plan of the royal palace, with the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 53

scale of measurement marked on the edge of a draw-
ing-board. Prof. Petrie has shown that the unit of
measurement represented in it is the cubit of the
pyramid-builders of Egypt.

The diorite of Sinai was not the only material
which was imported into Babylonia for the buildings
of Gudea. Beams of cedar and box were brought
from Mount Amanus at the head of the Gulf of
Antioch, blocks of stone were floated down the
Euphrates from Barsip near Carchemish, gold-dust
came from Melukhkha, the "salt" desert to the east
of Egypt which the Old Testament calls Havilah ;
copper was conveyed from the north of Arabia,
limestone from the Lebanon ("the mountains of
Tidanum "), and another kind of stone from Subsalla,
in the mountains of the Amorite land. Before beams
of wood and blocks of stone could thus be brought
from the distant west, it was necessary that trade
between Babylonia and the countries of the Mediter-
ranean should have long been organized, that the
roads throughout western Asia should have been
good and numerous, and that Babylonian influence
should have been extended far and wide. The con-
quests of Sargon and Naram-Sin had borne fruit in
the commerce that had followed upon them.

Once more the curtain falls, and Canaan is hidden
for a while out of our sight. Babylonia has become
a united kingdom with its capital and centre at
Babylon. Khammurabi (2 123-2081 B.C.) has suc-
ceeded in shaking off the suzerainty of Elam, in
overthrowing his rival Eri-Aku, king of Larsa, and
his Elamite allies, and in constituting himself sole
monarch of Babylonia. His family was of Amorite
origin, like that of Abraham, and probably came from

54 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

the city of Harran. Their names are Amorite, not
Babylonian, and the Babylonian scribes found a
difficulty in transcribing them correctly. But once
in the possession of the Babylonian throne, they
became thoroughly national, and under Khammurabi
the literary glories of the court of Sargon of Akkad
revived once more.

Ammi-ditana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi,
calls himself king of "the land of the Amorites."
Babylonia, therefore, still claimed to be paramount
in Palestine. Even the name of the king is an indica-
tion of his connection with the west. Neither of the
elements of which it is composed belonged to the
Babylonian language. The first of them, Ammi, was
explained by the Babylonian philologists as meaning
"a family," but it really represented the name of a
god. We find it in the proper names both of Southern
and of North-western Arabia. The early Minaean
inscriptions of Southern Arabia contain names like
Ammi-karib, Ammi-zadiqa, and Ammi-zaduq, the last
of which is identical with that of Ammi-zaduq, the
son and successor of Ammi-ditana. The Egyptian
Sinuhit, who in the time of the twelfth dynasty fled,
like Moses, for his life from the court of the Pharaoh
to the neighbourhood of Beyrout, found protection
there at the hands of the chieftain Ammu-anshi. The
Ammonites themselves were the "sons of Ammi,"
and in numerous Hebrew names we find that of the
god. Ammi-el, Ammi-nadab, and Ammi-shaddai are
mentioned in the Old Testament, the Assyrian inscrip-
tions tell us of Ammi-nadab, the king of Ammon,
and it is possible that even the name of Balaam, the
Aramaean seer, may be compounded with that of the
god. At all events, the city of Pethor, from which

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 55

he came, was "by the river (Euphrates) of the land
of the children of Ammo," for such is the literal
rendering of the Hebrew words.

Ammi-ditana was not the first of his line whose
authority had been acknowledged in Palestine. The
inscription in which he records the fact is but a con-
firmation of what had been long known to us from the
Book of Genesis. There we read how Chedor-laomer,
the king of Elam, with the three vassal princes, Arioch
of Ellasar, Amraphel of Shinar, and Tid'al of Nations,
invaded Canaan, and how the kings of the vale of
Siddim, with its pits of asphalt, became their tribu-
taries. For thirteen years they remained submissive,
and then rebelled. Thereupon the Babylonian army
again marched to the west. Bashan and the eastern
bank of the Jordan were subjugated, the Horites in
Mount Seir were smitten, and the invaders then turned
back through Kadesh-barnea, overthrowing the
Amalekites and the Amorites on their way. Then
came the battle in the vale of Siddim, which ended in
the defeat of the Canaanites, the death of the kings of
Sodom and Gomorrha, and the capture of abundant
booty. Among the prisoners was Lot, the nephew
of Abram, and it was to effect his rescue that the
patriarch armed his followers and started in pursuit
of the conquerors. Near Damascus he overtook them,
and falling upon them by night, recovered the spoil
of Sodom as well as his "brother's son."

Arioch is the Eri-Aku of the cuneiform texts. In
the old language of Chaldea the name signified
"servant of the Moon-god." The king is well known
to us from contemporaneous inscriptions. Besides
the inscribed bricks which have come from the temple
of the Moon-god which he enlarged, in the city of

56 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

\}r, there are numerous contract tablets that are dated
in his reign. He tells us that he was the son of
an Elamite, Kudur-Mabug, son of Simti-silkhak, and
prince (or "father") of Yamutbal on the borders of
Elam and Babylonia. But this is not all. He further
gives Kudur-Mabug the title of "father of the Amorite
land." What this title exactly means it is difficult to
say ; one thing, however, is certain, Kudur-Mabug
must have exercised some kind of power and authority
in the distant west.

His name, too, is remarkable. Names compounded
with Kudur, "a servant," were common in the Elamite
language, the second element of the name being that
of a deity, to whose worship the owner of it was
dedicated. Thus we have Kudur-Lagamar, "the
servant of the god Lagamar," Kudur-Nakhkhunte,
"the servant of Nakhkhunte." But Mabug was not
an Elamite divinity. It was, on the contrary, a
Mesopotamian deity from whom the town of Mabug
near Carchemish, called Bambyke by the Greeks, and
assimilated by the Arabs to their Membij, "a source,"
derived its name. Can it be from this Syrian deity
that the father of Arioch received his name ?

The capital of Arioch, or Eri-Aku, was Larsa, the
city of the Sun-god, now called Senkereh. With
the help of his Elamite kindred, he extended his
power from thence over the greater part of Southern
Babylonia. The old city of Ur, once the seat of the
dominant dynasty of Chaldaean kings, formed part of
his dominions; Nipur, now Niffer, fell into his hands,
like the seaport Eridu on the shores of the Persian
Gulf, and in one of his inscriptions he celebrates his
conquest of "the ancient city of Erech." On the
day of its capture he erected in gratitude a temple

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 57

to his god Ingirisa, "for the preservation of his
life."

But the god did not protect him for ever. A time
came when Khammurabi, king of Babylon, rose in
revolt against the Elamite supremacy, and drove the
Elamite forces out of the land. Eri-Aku was attacked
and defeated, and his cities fell into the hands of
the conqueror. Khammurabi became sole king of
Babylonia, which from henceforth obeyed but a single
sceptre.

Are we to see in the Amraphel of Genesis the
Khammurabi of the cuneiform inscriptions? When
the first edition of this book was published no definite
answer could be given to this question. But dis-
coveries have followed rapidly upon one another in
Babylonian research, and we now know that the
Khammurabi of the inscriptions and the Amraphel
of the Old Testament were one and the same. The
name Khammurabi was, in fact, nothing more than
a lame attempt of the Babylonians to pronounce and
write a foreign name. Like Abraham, Khammurabi
was of Amorite, or, as we should now say, of West-
Semitic, descent, and his name is more correctly
written in the cuneiform texts of both Assyria and
Babylonia Ammurapi. Ammurapi is clearly the
Amraphel of Genesis without the final /. How this
I originated has been explained by Prof. Hommel.
The last syllable of the name of Khammurabi is often
written with a cuneiform character which has the
values of bi and pi as well as pil. In transcribing
the original cuneiform text the Hebrew translator
assigned the wrong value to the sign, and wrote pil
instead of pi or bi. It can be shown that similar
mistakes have been made in other parts of the Penta-

58 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

teuch, where a wrong phonetic value has been given
to a cuneiform character in the transcription into
Hebrew of a proper name.

Amraphel is called king of Shinar, the Old Testa-
ment name of Babylonia. Why it should have been
called Shinar is still a puzzle. On the one side Shinar
could be phonetically identified with Sumer, the native
name of Southern Babylonia ; on the other side it is
the same name as that of the oasis of Singara or Sinjar
in Mesopotamia. It is also the same name as San-
khar, the name of a country coupled with that of the
Hittites in the Tel el-Amarna letters. But we do not
know where Sankhar exactly was.

It was not only the Old Testament writers, however,
to whom Babylonia was known as Shinar. The
Egyptians of the Mosaic age called it by the same
name. The great conqueror, Thothmes III, for in-
stance, tells us how the king of Sangar or Shinar
sent him, among other things, the lapis-lazuli of
Babylon, which the vanity of the Egyptian scribes
made them regard in the light of tribute. To both
Egyptians and Hebrews the king of Babylon was
king also of Shinar.

Hence it is that the narrative of Chedor-laomer's
campaign begins with the words that it took place
"in the time of Amraphel, king of Shinar." The
narrative has been derived from a Babylonian docu-
ment, as is shown by the fact that, although the actual
leader of the expedition was the Elamite sovereign,
it is dated in the reign of his vassal, the Babylonian
king. The years were dated in Babylonia by the
chief event or events that had occurred in them ; but
the events were necessarily those which concerned the
native king and his subjects only. A war carried on

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 59

by a foreign conqueror, to which the king of Babylon
had been unwillingly dragged by his suzerain lord,
would naturally not be recorded, and hence no refer-
ence to the Canaanite campaign is to be found in the
official annals or "year-dates" of Khammurabi's
reign. We shall have to look for a record of it in
the annals of Elam. This, too, will explain the state-
ment that the campaign took place "in the time of
Amraphel," and not in a particular year of the king's
reign.

Lagamar or Lagamer, written Laomer in Hebrew,
was one of the principal deities of Elam, and the
Babylonians made him a son of their own water-god
Ea. The Elamite king Chedor-laomer, or Kudur-
Lagamar, as his name was written in his own
language, must have been related to the Elamite
prince Kudur-Mabug, whose son Arioch was a
subject-ally of the Elamite monarch. Possibly they
were brothers, the younger brother receiving as his
share of power the title of "father" — not "king" —
of Yamutbal and the land of the Amorites. At any
rate, it is a son of Kudur-Mabug and not of the
Elamite sovereign who receives a principality in
Babylonia.

In the Book of Genesis Arioch is called "king of
Ellasar." But Ellasar is clearly the Larsa of the
cuneiform inscriptions, perhaps with the word a/,
"city," prefixed. Larsa, the modern Senkereh, was
in Southern Babylonia, on the eastern bank of the
Euphrates, not far from Erech, and to the north of
Ur. Its king was virtually lord of Sumer, but he
claimed to be lord also of the north. In his inscrip-
tions Eri-Aku assumes the imperial title of "king of
Sumer and Akkad," of both divisions of Babylonia,

60 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and it may be that at one time the rival king of
Babylon acknowledged his supremacy.

Who "Tidal king of Nations" was has been
explained by the progress of cuneiform discovery.
Some years ago Dr. Pinches found a series of tablets
which described, under a late and poetical form, the
conquest of Babylon and the profanation of its temple
by Kudur-laghghamar, the Elamite king. Among the
subject princes who followed in the train of the con-
queror were Eri-Aku, or Arioch, and Tudghula, the
leader of the Northern "hordes." Tudghula is an
exact reproduction in cuneiform characters of the
Hebrew Tid'al, written Tidal in the Authorized Ver-
sion; what is more, it is also a Hittite name, and was
borne in later days by one of the last kings of the
Hittite empire, who calls himself Tudkhalia. In the
Northern "hordes" we may, therefore, see the Hit-
tites. References to the "king of the Hittites" and
his actions are met with in the great astronomical
work which was compiled in the time of Khammurabi ;
and a few years later, in the reign of Khammurabi 's
great-grandson, Babylonia was invaded by the Hit-
tites, an event which seems to have led to the downfall
of the Khammurabi dynasty. At the time of the
capture of Babylon by the Elamites Khammurabi was
still a boy; it was not until his thirty-first year that
he made himself independent and shook off the
Elamite supremacy. Dr. Kugler, on astronomical
grounds, has fixed the reign of Khammurabi as
extending from 2123 B.C. to 2081 B.C., so that his
thirty-first year would be 2092 B.C.

The name, even, of one of the Canaanite kings who
were subdued by the Babylonian army has found its
confirmation in a cuneiform inscription. This is the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 61

name of "Shinab, king of Adman." We hear from
Tiglath-pileser III. of Sanibu, king- of Amnion, and
Sanibu and Shinab are one and the same. The old
name of the king of Admah was thus perpetuated on
the eastern side of the Jordan.

The asphalt of Siddim was coveted by the Baby-
lonian kings. Bitumen was one of the necessaries of
life in Babylonia, and appears to have been a state
monopoly. It was used in place of mortar, as well
as for heating and lighting purposes. The bitumen
springs east of the Tigris and on the western bank
of the Euphrates were jealously guarded by the
Babylonian Government, and no opportunity was
neglected of securing fresh sources of supply. Hence
the rebellion of the Canaanite princes by cutting off
the supply of bitumen from the neighbourhood of
the Dead Sea was a serious matter which needed
exemplary punishment. Hence, too, the rise of Jeru-
salem, which, though at a distance from the military
high-road, was on the bitumen route from the Dead
Sea, which its strong position enabled it to command
and defend. The name of Jerusalem, which is written
in cuneiform Uru-Salim, "the city of the god Salim,"
is an indication of its Babylonian foundation.

When Abram returned with the captives and spoil
of Sodom, the new king came forth to meet him "at
the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale." This
was in the near neighbourhood of Jerusalem, as we
gather from the history of Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 18).
Accordingly we further read that at the same time
" Melchizedek, king of Salem," and "priest of the
most High God," "brought forth bread and wine,"
and blessed the Hebrew conqueror, who thereupon
gave him tithes of all the spoil.

62 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

It is only since the discovery and decipherment
of the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna that the
story of Melchizedek has been illustrated and ex-
plained. Hitherto it had seemed to stand alone. The
critics, in the superiority of their knowledge, had
refused to credit it, and had denied that the name
even of Jerusalem or Salem was known before the
age of David. But the monuments have come to our
help, and have shown that it is the critics and not the
Biblical writer who have been in error.

Several of the most interesting of the Tel el-Amarna
letters were written to the Pharaoh Amenophis IV.
Khu-n-Aten by Ebed-Kheba, the king of Jerusalem.
Not only is the name of Uru-salim or Jerusalem the
only one in use, the city itself is already one of
the most important fortresses of Canaan. It was the
capital of a large district which extended southwards
as far as Keilah and Karmel of Judah. The posses-
sion of Jerusalem was eagerly coveted by the enemies
of Ebed-Kheba, whom he calls also the enemies of
the Egyptian king.

Now Ebed-Kheba declares time after time that he
is not an Egyptian governor, but a tributary ally
and vassal of the Pharaoh, and that he had received
his royal power, not by inheritance from his father
or mother, but through the arm of "the Mighty
King." Who this "Mighty King" may have been
it is difficult to say. Prof. Hommel sees in him the
king of the Hittites; most Assyriologists believe that
the Egyptian Pharaoh is meant, though elsewhere the
latter is called "the Great King" and not "the
Mighty King." In any case we have in the phrase
the prototype of Isaiah's "Mighty God."

Here, then, as late as the fifteenth century before

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 63

our era we have a king of Jerusalem who does not owe
his dignity to descent. He is, in fact, a viceregent
as well as a king. His throne has not descended to
him by inheritance; so far as his kingly office is
concerned, he is like Melchizedek, without father
and without mother. Between Ebed-Kheba and
Melchizedek there is more than analogy; there is a
striking and unexpected resemblance. The descrip-
tion given of himself by Ebed-Kheba explains much
that has puzzled us so long in the person of
Melchizedek.

The origin of the name of Jerusalem also is now
cleared up. It was no invention of the age of David;
on the contrary, it goes back to the period of Baby-
lonian intercourse with Canaan. It is written in the
cuneiform documents Uru-Salim, "the city of Salim,"
the god of salvation. One of the lexical tablets from
the library of Nineveh has long ago informed us that
in one of the languages known to the Babylonians
uru was the equivalent of the Babylonian alu, "a city,"
and we now know that this language was that of
Canaan. It would even seem that the word had
orginally been brought from Babylonia itself in the
days when Babylonian writing and culture first
penetrated to the west. In the Sumerian or pre-
Semitic language of Chalda?a eri signified a "city,"
and eri in the pronunciation of the Semites became
uru. Hence it was that Uru or Ur, the birthplace
of Abraham, received its name at a time when it was
the ruling city of Babylonia, and though the Semitic
Babylonians themselves never adopted the word in
common life it made its way to Canaan. The rise
of the "city" in the west was part of that Babylonian
civilization which was carried to the shores of the

64 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Mediterranean, and so the word which denoted it
was borrowed from the old language of Chaldaea, like
the word for "palace," hekdl, the Sumerian e-gal, or
"Great House." It is noteworthy that Harran, the
resting-place of Abraham on his way from Ur to
Palestine, the half-way house, as it were, between East
and West, also derived its name from a Sumerian
word which signified "the high-road." Harran and
Ur were two of the gifts which passed to Canaan from
the speakers of the primaeval language of Chaldaea.

We can now understand why Melchizedek should
have been called the "king of Salem." His capital
could be described either as Jeru-salem or as the
city of Salem. And that it was often referred to as
Salem simply is shown by the Egyptian monuments.
One of the cities of Southern Palestine, the capture
of which is represented by Ramses II. on the walls
of the Ramesseum at Thebes, is Shalam or Salem,
and "the district of Salem " is mentioned between
"the country of Hadashah " (Josh. xv. 37) and "the
district of the Dead Sea" and "the Jordan," in the
list of the places which Ramses III. at Medinet Habu
describes himself as having conquered in the same
part of the world.

It may be that Isaiah is playing upon the old name
of Jerusalem when he gives the Messiah the title of
"Prince of Shalom" or "Peace." But in any case
the fact that Salim was the patron deity of Jerusalem,
lends a special significance to Melchizedek's treatment
of Abram. The patriarch had returned from an ex-
pedition in which he had overthrown the invaders of
Canaan ; he had brought salvation to the country of
the priest-king, and had driven away its enemies.
The offering of bread and wine on the part of Mel-

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 65

cliizedek was a sign of freedom from the enemy and
of gratitude to the deliverer, while the tithes paid to
Abram were equally a token that the land was again
at peace. The name of Salim, the god of salvation,
was under one form or another widely spread in the
Semitic world. Salamanu, or Solomon, was the king
of Moab in the time of Tiglath-pileser III.; the name
of Shalmaneser of Assyria is written Sulman-asarid,
"the god Sulman is chief," in the cuneiform inscrip-
tions ; and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters was sent
by Ebed-Sullim, "the servant of Sullim," who was
governor of Hazor. In one of the Assyrian cities
(Dimmen-Silim, "the foundation-stone of peace")
worship was paid to the god "Sulman the fish." Nor
must we forget that "Salma was the father of Beth-
lehem" (1 Chron. ii. 51).

In the time of the Israelitish conquest the king of
Jerusalem was Adoni-zedek (Josh. x. 1). The name
is similar to that of Melchi-zedek, though the exact
interpretation of it is a matter of doubt. It points,
however, to a special use of the word sedek, "right-
eousness," and it is therefore interesting to find the
word actually employed in one of the letters of Ebed-
Kheba. He there says of the Pharaoh: "Behold,
the king is righteous (zaduq) towards me." What
makes the occurrence of the word the more striking
is that it was utterly unknown to the Babylonians.
The root zadaq, "to be righteous," did not exist in
the Assyrian language.

There is yet another point in the history of the
meeting between Abram and Melchizedek which must
not be passed over. When the patriarch returned
after smiting the invading army he was met outside
Jerusalem not only by Melchizedek, but also by the

66 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

new king of Sodom. It was, therefore, in the moun-
tains and in the shadow of the sanctuary of the Most
High God that the newly-appointed prince was to be
found, rather than in the vale of Siddim. Does not
this show that the king of Jerusalem already exercised
that sovereignty over the surrounding district that
Ebed-Kheba did in the century before the Exodus?
As we have seen, Jerusalem commanded the trade-
route of the bitumen, and one of the duties which
Ebed-Kheba tells us devolved upon him was that of
looking after the safety of the caravans. It would
seem, then, that the priest-king of the great fortress
in the mountains was already acknowledged as the
dominant Canaanitish ruler, and that the neighbour-
ing princes had to pay him homage when they first
received the crown.

Long after the defeat of Chedor-laomer and his
allies, if we are to accept the traditional belief,
Abraham was again destined to visit Jerusalem. But
he had .ceased to be " Abram the Hebrew," the con-
federate of the Amorite chieftains in the plain of
Mamre, and had become Abraham the father Of the
promised seed. Isaac had been born to him, and he
was called upon to sacrifice his first-born son.

The place of sacrifice was upon one of the moun-
tains in the land of Moriah. There at the last moment
the hand of the father was stayed, and a ram was
substituted for the human victim. "And Abraham
called the name of that place Yahveh-yireh ; as it is
said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be
seen." According to the Hebrew text of the Chroni-
cles (2 Chron. iii. 1), this mount of the Lord where
Abraham's sacrifice was offered was the temple-mount
at Jerusalem. The proverb quoted in Genesis seems

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 67

to indicate the same fact. Moreover, the distance of
the mountain from Beer-sheba — three days' journey
— would be also the distance of Jerusalem from
Abraham's starting-place.

It is even possible that in the name of Yahveh-
yireh we have a play upon the first element in the
name of Jeru-salem. The word uru, "city," became
yeru or yiru in Hebrew pronunciation, and between
this and yireh the difference is not great. Yahveh-
yireh, "the Lord sees," might also be interpreted "the
Lord of Yeru."

The temple-hill was emphatically "the mount of
the Lord." In Ezekiel (xliii. 15) the altar that stood
upon it is called Har-el, "the mountain of God." The
term reminds us of Babylonia, where the mercy-seat
of the great temple of Bel-Merodach at Babylon was
termed Du-azagga, "the holy hill." It was on this
"seat of the oracles," as it was termed, that the god
enthroned himself at the beginning of each year, and
announced his will to mankind. But the mercy-seat
was entitled "the holy hill" only because it was a
miniature copy of "the holy hill" upon which the
whole temple was erected. So, too, at Jerusalem, the
altar is called "the mount of God" by Ezekiel only
because it represents that greater "mount of God"
upon which it was built. The temple-hill itself was
the primitive Har-el.

The list of conquered localities in Palestine recorded
by Thothmes III. at Karnak gives indirect testimony
to the same fact. The name of Rabbah of Judah is
immediately preceded in it by that of Har-el, "the
mount of God." The position of this Har-el leads
us to the very mountain tract in the midst of which
Jerusalem stood. We now know that Jerusalem was

68 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

already an important city in the age of the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty, and that it formed one of the
Egyptian conquests; it would be strange therefore if
no notice had been taken of it by the compiler of
the list. May we not see, then, in the Har-el of the
Egyptian scribe the sacred mountain of Israelitish
history ?

There is a passage in one of the letters of Ebed-
Kheba which may throw further light on the history
of the temple-hill. Here the king of Jerusalem says
that "just now the city of the mountain of Jerusalem,
the city of the temple of the god Nin-ip is its name,
the city of the king (of Egypt), has revolted to the
men of Keilah." Nin-ip was a Babylonian god, the
precise pronunciation of whose name is still doubtful,
so that what he may have been called in the language
of Canaan is unknown. But the important thing to
notice is that it was a temple-city which stood on
"the mountain of Jerusalem" — not "land of Jeru-
salem," as it has been sometimes, but erroneously,
translated — and we may, therefore, identify it with
the temple-mount of later days and the site of the
ancient temple of Salim. The words of Ebed-Kheba
imply that it was separate from Jerusalem itself,
though standing on the same mountain-group as the
great fortress. Hence we might identify Jerusalem
with the city on Mount Zion, the Jebusite strong-
hold of a later date, while "the city of Beth-Nin-ip "
would be that which centred round the temple on
Moriah.

However this may be, the fortress and the temple-
hill were distinct from one another in the days of
the Jebusites, and we may therefore assume that they
were also distinct in the age of Abraham. This might

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 69

explain why it was that the mountain of Moriah on
the summit of which the patriarch offered his sacrifice
was not enclosed within the walls of Jerusalem, and
was not covered with buildings. It was a spot, on
the contrary, where sheep could feed, and a ram be
caught by its horns in the thick brushwood.

In entering Canaan, Abraham would have found
himself still surrounded by all the signs of a familiar
civilization. The long-continued influence and
government of Babylonia had carried to "the land
of the Amorites " all the elements of Chaldean
culture. Migration from Ur of the Chaldees to
the distant west meant a change only in climate
and population, not in the civilization to which the
patriarch had been accustomed.

Even the Babylonian language was known and
used in the cities of Canaan, and the literature of
Babylonia was studied by the Canaanitish people.
This is one of the facts which we have learnt from
the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets. The
cuneiform system of writing and the Babylonian
language had spread all over western Asia, and
nowhere had they taken deeper root than in Canaan.
Here there were schools and teachers for instruction
in the foreign language and script, and record-
chambers and libraries in which the letters and books
of clay could be copied and preserved.

Long before the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna
tablets we might have gathered from the Old Testa-
ment itself that such libraries once existed in Canaan.
One of the Canaanitish cities taken and destroyed by
the Israelites was Debir in the mountainous part of
Judah. But Debir, "the sanctuary," was also known
by two other names. It was called Kirjath-Sannah,

70 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

"the city of Instruction," as well as Kirjath-Sepher,
"the city of Books."

We now know, however, that the latter name is not
quite correct. The Massoretic punctuation has to be
emended, and we must read Kirjath-Sopher, "the city
of the Scribe(s)," instead of Kirjath-Sepher, "the
city of Book(s)." It is an Egyptian papyrus which
has given us the exact name. In the time of
Ramses II. an Egyptian scribe composed a sarcastic
account of the misadventures met with by a tourist
in Palestine — commonly known as The Travels of a
Mohar — and in this mention is made of two adjoining
towns in Southern Palestine called Kirjath-Anab and
Befh-Sopher. In the Book of Joshua the towns of
A nab and Kirjath-Sepher are similarly associated
together, and it is plain, therefore, as Dr. W. Max
Miiller has remarked, that the Egyptian writer has
interchanged the equivalent terms Kirjath, "city,"
and Beth, "house." He ought to have written Beth-
Anab and Kirjath-Sopher. But he has given us the
true form of the latter name, and as he has added to
the word Sopher the determinative of "writing," he
has further put beyond question the real meaning
of the name. The city must have been one of those
centres of Canaanitish learning where, as in the
libraries of Babylonia and Assyria, a large body of
scribes was kept constantly at work.

The language employed in the cuneiform documents
was almost always that of Babylonia, which had
become the common speech of diplomacy and educated
society. But at times the native language of the
country was also employed, and one or two examples
of it have been preserved. The legends and traditions
of Babylonia served as text-books for the student, and

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 71

doubtless Babylonian history was carried to the west
as well. The account of Chedor-laomer's campaign
might have been derived in this way from the clay-
books of ancient Babylonia.

Babylonian theology, too, made its way to the west,
and has left records of itself in the map of Canaan.
In the names of Canaanitish towns and villages the
names of Babylonian deities frequently recur. Rim-
mon or Hadad, the god of the air, whom the Syrians
identified with the Sun-god, Nebo, the god of pro-
phecy, the interpreter of the will of Bel-Merodach,
Anu, the god of the sky, and Anat, his consort, all
alike meet us in the names sometimes of places, some-
times of persons. Mr. Tomkins is probably right in
seeing even in Beth-lehem the name of the primaeval
Chaldasan deity Lakhmu. The Canaanitish Moloch is
the Babylonian Malik, the Dagon was one of the
oldest of Chaldasan divinities and the associate of
Anu. We have seen how ready Ebed-Kheba was to
identify the god he worshipped with the Babylonian
Nin-ip, and among the Canaanites mentioned in the
letters of Tel el-Amarna there is more than one whose
name is compounded with that of a Babylonian god.

Writing and literature, religion and mythology,
history and science, all these were brought to the
peoples of Canaan in the train of Babylonian con-
quest and trade. Art naturally went hand in hand
with this imported culture. The seal-cylinders of the
Chaldaeans were imitated, and Babylonian figures and
ornamental designs were borrowed and modified by
the Canaanitish artists. It was in this way that the
rosette, the cherub, the sacred tree, and the palmette
passed to the west, and there served to adorn the
metal-work and pottery. New designs, unknown in

72 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Babylonia, began to develop ; among others, the heads
of animals in gold and silver as covers for metal vases.
Some of these "vases of Kaft," as they were called,
are pictured on the Egyptian monuments, and
Thothmes III. in his annals describes "the paterae
with goats' heads upon them and one with a lion's
head, the productions of Zahi," or Palestine, which
were brought to him as tribute.

The spoil which the same Pharaoh carried away
from the Canaanitish princes gives us some idea of
the art which they patronized. We hear of chariots
and tent-poles covered with plates of gold, of iron
armour and helmets, of gold and silver rings which
were used in the place of money, of staves of ivory,
ebony, and cedar inlaid with gold, of golden sceptres,
of tables, chairs, and footstools of cedar wood, inlaid
some of them with ivory, others with gold and pre-
cious stones, of vases and bowls of all kinds in gold,
silver, and bronze, and of the two-handled cups which
were a special manufacture of Phoenicia. Iron seems
to have been worked in Canaan from an early date.
The Israelites were unable to drive out the inhabitants
of "the valley " because of their chariots of iron, and
when the chariot of the Egyptian Mohar is disabled
by the rough roads of the Canaanite mountains the
writer of the papyrus already referred to makes him
turn aside at once to a worker in iron. There was
no difficulty in finding an ironsmith in Canaan.

The purple dye of Phoenicia had been famous from
a remote antiquity. It was one of the chief objects
of the trade which was carried on by the Canaanites
with Egypt on the one side and Babylonia on the
other. It was doubtless in exchange for the purple
that the "goodly Babylonish garment" of which we

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 73

are told in the Book of Joshua (vii. 21) made its way
to the city of Jericho, for Babylonia was as celebrated
for its embroidered robes as Canaan was for its purple
dye.

We hear something about the trade of Canaan in
the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna. The king of
Alasiya (or Elishah), for instance, asks the Egyptian
king to prevent the custom-house officer annoying his
merchants and ships on their arrival in Egypt, and
elsewhere we hear of the trading caravans which
traversed Western Asia under the protection of the
Egyptian and Babylonian Governments. On one
occasion the Babylonian king made a formal com-
plaint to the Egyptian Government about an attack
on certain Babylonian commercial travellers who were
robbed and wounded while passing through Canaan,
which was at the time an Egyptian province, and an
indemnity was demanded for the losses they had
sustained.

Babylonia and the civilized lands of the East were
not the only countries with which Canaanitish trade
was carried on. Negro slaves were imported from the
Soudan, copper and lead from Cyprus, and horses
from Asia Minor, while the excavations of Mr. Bliss
at Lachish have brought to light beads of Baltic amber
mixed with the scarabs of the eighteenth Egyptian
dynasty.

A large part of the trade of Phoenicia was carried
on in ships. It was in this way that the logs of cedar
were brought from the forests at the head of the
Gulf of Antioch, and the purple murex from the coasts
of the ^gean. Tyre, whose wealth is already cele-
brated in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, was built
upon an island, and, as an Egyptian papyrus tells us,

74 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

water had to be conveyed to it in boats. So, too, was
Arvad, whose navy occupies an important place in the
Tel el-Amarna correspondence. The ships of Canaan
were, in fact, famous from an early date. Two classes
of vessel known to the Egyptians were called "ships
of Gebal " and "ships of Kaft," or Krete, and Ebed-
Kheba asserts that "he had set a ship upon the sea
when the arm of the Mighty King conquered the
forces of Naharaim (Nahrima) and Kapasi." Balaam's
prophecy — "Ships shall come from Chittim and shall
afflict Asshur and shall afflict Eber," takes us back to
the same age.

The Aram-Naharaim of Scripture is the Nahrina
of the hieroglyphic texts, the Mitanni of the native
inscriptions. The capital city Mitanni stood on the
eastern bank of the Euphrates, at no great distance
from Carchemish, but the Naharaim, or "Two
Rivers," more probably mean the Euphrates and
Orontes than the Euphrates and Tigris. In one
of the Tel el-Amarna tablets the country is called
Nahrima, but its usual name is Mitanni or Mitanna.
It was the first independent kingdom of any size or
power on the frontiers of the Egyptian empire in the
age of the eighteenth dynasty, and the Pharaohs
Thothmes IV., Amenophis III., and Amenophis IV.
successively married into its royal family.

The language of Mitanni has been revealed to us
by the cuneiform correspondence from Tel el-Amarna.
It was highly agglutinative, and unlike any other
form of speech, ancient or modern, with which we
are acquainted. Perhaps the speakers of it, like the
Hittites, had descended from the north, and occupied
territory which had originally belonged to Aramaic
tribes. Perhaps, on the other hand, they represented

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 75

the older population of the country which was over-
powered and displaced by Semitic invaders. Which
of these views is the more correct we shall probably
never know.

Along with their own language the people of
Mitanni had also their own theology. Tessupas was
god of the atmosphere, the Hadad of the Semites,
Sauskas was identified with the Phoenician Ashtoreth,
and Sekhrus, Zizanu, and Zannukhu are mentioned
among the other deities. But many of the divinities
of Assyria were also borrowed — Sin the Moon-god,
whose temples stood in the city of Harran, Ea the
god of the waters, Bel, the Baal of the Canaanites,
and Istar, "the lady of Nineveh." Even Amon the
god of Thebes was adopted into the pantheon in the
days of Egyptian influence.

How far back the interference of Aram-Naharaim
in the affairs of Canaan may have reached it is impos-
sible to say. But the kingdom lay on the high-road
from Babylonia and Assyria to the West, and its rise
may possibly have had something to do with the
decline of Babylonian supremacy in Palestine. The
district in which it grew up was called Suru or Suri
by the Sumerian inhabitants of Chaldasa — a name
which may be the origin of the modern "Syria,"
rather than Assyria, as is usually supposed, and the
Semitic Babylonians gave it the title of Subari or
Subartu. The conquest of Suri was the work of the
last campaign of Sargon of Accad, and laid all
northern Mesopotamia at his feet.

We gather from the letters of Tel el-Amarna that
the Babylonians were still intriguing in Canaan in
the century before the Exodus, though they acknow-
ledged that it was an Egyptian province and subject

76 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

to Egyptian laws. But the memory of the power
they had 'once exercised there still survived, and the
influence of their culture continued undiminished.
When their rule actually ceased we do not yet know.
It cannot have been very long, however, before the
era of Egyptian conquest. In the Tel el-Amarna
tablets they are probably called Kassites, a name
which could have been given to them only after the
conquest of Babylonia by the Kassite mountaineers
of Elam, and the rise of a Kassite dynasty of kings.
This was about 1760 B.C. For some time subse-
quently, therefore, the government of Babylonia must
still have been acknowledged in Canaan. With this
agrees a statement of the Egyptian historian Manetho,
upon which the critics, in their wisdom or their
ignorance, have poured unmeasured contempt. He
tells us that when the Hyksos were driven out of
Egypt by Ahmes I., the founder of the eighteenth
dynasty, they occupied Jerusalem and fortified it —
not, as would naturally be imagined, against the
Egyptian Pharaoh, but against "the Assyrians," as
the Babylonians were called by Manetho's contem-
poraries. As long as there were no monuments to
confront them the critics had little difficulty in proving
that the statement was preposterous and unhistorical,
that Jerusalem did not as yet exist, and that no
Assyrians or Babylonians entered Palestine until cen-
turies later. But we now know that Manetho was
right and his critics wrong. Jerusalem did exist, and
Babylonian armies threatened the independence of
the Canaanite states. In one of his letters, Ebed-
Kheba, king of Jerusalem, tells the Pharaoh that he
need not be alarmed about the Babylonians, for the
temple at Jerusalem is strong enough to resist their

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 77

attack. Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal bears the
same testimony. "When thou didst sit on the throne
of thy father," he says, "the sons of Ebed-Asherah
(the Amorite) attached themselves to the country of
the Babylonians, and took the country of the Pharaoh
for themselves; they (intrigued with) the king of
Mitanna, and the king of the Babylonians, and the
king of the Hittites." In another despatch he speaks
in a similar strain: "The king of the Babylonians
and the king of Mitanna are strong, and have taken
the country of the Pharaoh for themselves already,
and have seized the cities of thy governor." When
George the Synkellos notes that the Chaldasans made
war against the Phoenicians in 1556 B.C., he is doubt-
less quoting from some old and trustworthy source.

We must not imagine, however, that there was any
permanent occupation of Canaan on the part of the
Babylonians at this period of its history. It would
seem rather that Babylonian authority was directly
exercised only from time to time, and had to be en-
forced by repeated invasions and campaigns. It was
the influence of Babylonian civilization and culture
that was permanent, not the Babylonian government
itself. Sometimes, indeed, Canaan became a Baby-
lonian province, at other times there were only certain
portions of the country which submitted to the foreign
control, while again at other times the Babylonian
rule was merely nominal. But it is clear that it was
not until Canaan had been thoroughly reduced by
Egyptian arms that the old claim of Babylonia to be
its mistress was finally renounced, and even then
we see that intrigues were carried on with the
Babylonians against the Egyptian authority.

It was during this period of Babylonian influence

78 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and tutelage that the traditions and myths of Chaldaea
became known to the people of Canaan. It is again
the tablets of Tel el-Amarna which have shown us
how this came to pass. Among them are fragments
of Babylonian legends, one of which endeavoured to
account for the creation of man and the introduction
of death into the world, and these legends were used
as exercise-books in the foreign language by the
scribes of Canaan and Egypt who were learning the
Babylonian language and script. If ever we discover
the library of Kirjath-sepher we shall doubtless find
among its clay records similar examples of Chaldaean
literature. The resemblances between the cosmogonies
of Phoenicia and Babylonia have often been pointed
out, and since the discovery of the Chaldaean account
of the Deluge by George Smith we have learned that
between that account and the one which is preserved
in Genesis there is the closest possible likeness,
extending even to words and phrases. The long-
continued literary influence of Babylonia in Palestine
in the Patriarchal Age explains all this, and shows
us how the traditions of Chaldaea made their way to
the west. When Abraham entered Canaan, he
entered a country whose educated inhabitants were
already familiar with the books, the history, and the
traditions of that in which he had been born. There
were doubtless many to whom the name and history
of " LTr of the Chaidees " were already known. It
may even be that copies of the books in its library
already existed in the libraries of Canaan.

There was one Babylonian hero at all events whose
name had become so well known in the west that it
had there passed into a proverb. This was the name
of Nimrod, "the mighty hunter before the Lord." As

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 79

yet the cuneiform documents are silent about him, but
it is probable that he was the founder of Nineveh who
had led the Semites of Babylonia to the conquest of
Assyria. He is called the son of Cush or Kas, and
"the beginning of his kingdom " was Babylon, which
had now for six centuries been the capital of the
country. His name, however, was as familiar to the
Canaanite as it was to the inhabitant of Chaldsea, and
the god before whom his exploits were displayed was
Yahveh and not Bel.

It was about 1600 B.C. that the Hyksos were finally
expelled from Egypt. They were originally Asiatic
hordes who had overrun the valley of the Nile, and
held it in subjection for several centuries. At first
they had carried desolation with them wherever they
went. The temples of the Egyptian gods were de-
stroyed and their priests massacred. But before long
Egyptian culture proved too strong for the invaders.
The rude chief of a savage horde became transformed
into an Egyptian Pharaoh, whose court resembled
that of the ancient line of monarchs, and who sur-
rounded himself with learned men. The cities and
temples were restored and beautified, and art began
to flourish once more. Except in one respect it became
difficult to distinguish the Hyksos prince from his
predecessors on the throne of Egypt. That one
respect was religion. The supreme object of Hyksos
worship continued to be Sutekh, the Baal of Western
Asia, whose cult the foreigners had brought with them
from their old homes. But even Sutekh was assimi-
lated to Ra, the Sun-god of On, and the Hyksos
Pharaohs felt no scruple in imitating the native kings
and combining their own names with that of Ra.
It was only the Egyptians who refused to admit the

80 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

assimilation, and insisted on identifying Sutekh with
Set, the enemy of Horus.

At the outset all Egypt was compelled to submit
to the Hyksos domination. Hyksos monuments have
been found as far south as Gebelen and El-Kab, and
the first Hyksos dynasty established its seat in Mem-
phis, the old capital of the country. Gradually, how-
ever, the centre of Hyksos power retreated into the
delta. Zoan or Tanis, the modern San, became the
residence of the court : here the Hyksos kings were
in close proximity to their kindred in Asia, and were,
moreover, removed from the unmixed Egyptian
population further south. From Zoan, "built" — or
rather rebuilt — "seven years" after Hebron (Num.
xiii. 22), they governed the valley of the Nile. Their
rule was assisted by the mutual jealousies and quarrels
of the native feudal princes who shared between them
the land of Egypt. The foreigner kept his hold upon
the country by means of the old feudal aristocracy.

Thebes, however, had never forgotten that it had
been the birthplace and capital of the powerful
Pharaohs of the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties, of
the mighty princes who had conquered the Soudan,
and ruled with an iron hand over the feudal lords.
The heirs of the Theban Pharaohs still survived as
princes of Thebes, and behind the strong walls of El-
Kab they began to think of independence. Apophis II.
in his court at Zoan perceived the rising storm, and
endeavoured to check it at its beginning. According
to the story of a later day, he sent insulting messages
to the prince of Thebes, and ordered him to worship
Sutekh the Hyksos god. The prince defied his suze-
rain, and the war of independence began. It lasted
for several generations, during which the Theban

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN Si

princes made themselves masters of Upper Egypt,
and established a native dynasty of Pharaohs which
reigned simultaneously with the Hyksos dynasty in
the North.

Step by step the Hyksos stranger was pushed back
to the north-eastern corner of the delta. At length
Zoan itself fell into the hands of the Egyptians, and
the Hyksos took refuge in the great fortress of Avaris
on the extreme border of the kingdom. Here they
were besieged by the Theban prince Ahmes, and
eventually driven back to the Asia from which they
had come. The eighteenth dynasty was founded, and
Ahmes entered on that career of Asiatic conquest
which converted Canaan into an Egyptian province.
At first the war was one of revenge; but it soon
became one of conquest, and the war of independence
was followed by the rise of the Egyptian empire.
Thothmes II., the grandson of Ahmes, led his forces
as far as the Euphrates and the land of Aram-
Naharaim. The territories thus overrun in a sort of
military reconnaissance were conquered and annexed
by his son Thothmes III., during his long reign of
fifty-four years (March 20, 1503 B.C., to February 14,
1449 B.C.). Canaan on both sides of the Jordan was
made into a province, and governed much as India
is to-day. Some of the cities were allowed still to
retain their old line of princes, who were called upon
to furnish tribute to the Egyptian treasury and recruits
to the Egyptian army. From time to time they were
visited by an Egyptian "Commissioner," and an
Egyptian garrison kept watch upon their conduct.
Sometimes an Egyptian Resident was appointed by
the side of the native king; this was the case, for
example, at Sidon and Hazor. Where, however, the

F

82 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

city was of strategical or political importance it was
incorporated into the Egyptian empire, and placed
under the immediate control of an Egyptian governor,
as at Megiddo, Gaza, Gebal, Gezer, and Tyre.
Similarly Ziri-Basana, "the field of Bashan," was
under the government of a single khazan or "prefect."
The troops, who also acted as police, were divided
into various classes. There were the tsabi pidati or
"bowmen," the tsabi saruti or "militia," the Khabbati
or "Beduin plunderers," and the tsabi matsarti or
"Egyptian soldiers of the garrison," as well as the
tsabi bitati or "house-guards," who were summoned
in cases of emergency. Among the auxiliaries were
included the Serdani or Sardinians, while the Sute —
the Sati or Sitti of the hieroglyphic texts — formed the
larger portion of the Beduin (" Bashi-bazouks "), and
the Egyptian forces were divided into the cavalry or
rather charioteers, and the Misi (called Mas'u in the
hieroglyphics) or infantry.

Fragments of the annals of Thothmes III. have
been preserved on the shattered walls of his temple at
Karnak. Here, too, we may read the lists of places
he conquered in Palestine — the land of the Upper
Lotan as it is termed — as well as in Northern Syria.
Like the annals, the geographical lists have been
compiled from memoranda made on the spot by the
scribes who followed the army, and in some instances,
at all events, it can be shown that they have been
translated into Egyptian hieroglyphs from Babylonian
cuneiform. The fact is an indication of the conquest
that Asia was already beginning to make over her
Egyptian conquerors. But the annals themselves are
a further and still more convincing proof of Asiatic
influence. To cover the walls of a temple with the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 83

history of campaigns in a foreign land, and an account
of the tribute brought to the Pharaoh, was wholly
contrary to Egyptian ideas. From the Egyptian point
of view the decoration of the sacred edifice should
have been theological only. The only subjects repre-
sented on it, so custom and belief had ruled, ought to
be the gods, and the stereotyped phrases describing
their attributes, their deeds, and their festivals. To
substitute for this the records of secular history was
Assyrian and not Egyptian. Indeed the very concep-
tion of annalistic chronicling, in which the history of
a reign was given briefly year by year and campaign
by campaign, belonged to the kingdoms of the Tigris
and Euphrates, not to that of the Nile. It was a new
thing in Egypt, and flourished there only during the
short period of Asiatic influence. The Egyptian cared
comparatively little for history, and made use of
papyrus when he wished to record it. Unfortu-
nately for us the annals of Thothmes III. remain
the solitary monument of Egyptian chronicling on
stone.

The twenty-second year of his reign (1481 B.C.)
was that in which the Egyptian Pharaoh made his
first determined effort to subdue Canaan. Gaza was
occupied without much difficulty, and in the following
year, on the fifth day of the month Pakhons, he set
out from it, and eleven days later encamped at Ihem.
There he learned that the confederated Canaanitish
army, under the command of the king of Kadesh on
the Orontes, was awaiting his attack at Megiddo.
Not only were the various nations of Palestine repre-
sented in it, but contingents had come from Naharaim
on the banks of the Euphrates, as well as from the
Gulf of Antioch. For a while Thothmes hesitated
f 2

84 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

whether to march against them by the road which
led through 'Aluna to Taanach or by way of Zaft
(perhaps Safed), whence he would have descended
southward upon Megiddo. The arrival of his spies,
however, determined him to take the first, and accord-
ingly, after the officers had sworn that they would not
leave their appointed posts in battle even to defend
the person of the king, he started on his march, and
on the nineteenth of the month pitched his tent at
'Aluna. The way had been rough and impassable
for chariots, so that the king had been forced to march
on foot.

'Aluna must have been close to Megiddo, since the
rear of the Egyptian forces was stationed there during
the battle that followed, while the southern wing ex-
tended to Taanach and the northern wing to Megiddo.
The advanced guard pushed into the plain below, and
the royal tent was set up on the bank of the brook of
Qana, an affluent of the Kishon. The decisive
struggle took place on the twenty-first of the month.
Thothmes rode in a chariot of polished bronze, and
posted himself among the troops on the north-west
side of Megiddo. The Canaanites were unable to
resist the Egyptian charge. They fled into the city,
leaving behind them their horses and their chariots
plated with gold and silver, those who arrived after
the gates of the town had been shut being drawn
up over the walls by means of ropes. Had the
Egyptians not stayed behind in order to plunder the
enemy's camp they would have entered Megiddo
along with the fugitives. As it was, they were com-
pelled to blockade the city, building a rampart round
it of "fresh green trees," and the besieged were finallv
starved into a surrender.

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 35

In the captured camp had been found the son of the
king of Megiddo, besides a large amount of booty,
including chariots of silver and gold from Asi or
Cyprus. Two suits of iron armour were also obtained,
one belonging to the king of Kadesh, the other to the
king of Megiddo. The seven tent-poles of the royal
tent, plated with gold, also fell into the hands of the
Egyptians. The catalogue of the spoil was written
down on a leather roll which was deposited in the
temple of Amon at Thebes, and in it were enumer-
ated : 3401 prisoners and 83 hands belonging to the
slain, 32 chariots plated with gold, 892 ordinary
chariots, 2041 mares, 191 foals, 602 bows, and 200
suits of armour.

Before the campaign was ended the Egyptian army
had penetrated far to the north and captured Inuam,
north of Damascus, as well as Anugas or Nukhasse,
and Harankal, to the north of the land of the Amor-
ites. All these places seem to have belonged to the
king of Kadesh, as his property was carried away out
of them. When Thothmes returned to Thebes the
quantity of spoil he brought back with him was
immense. " Besides precious stones," golden bowls,
Phoenician cups with double handles and the like,
there were 97 swords, 1784 pounds of gold rings and
966 pounds of silver rings, which served as money,
a statue with a head of gold, tables, chairs, and staves
of cedar and ebony inlaid with gold, ivory and
precious stones, a golden plough, the golden sceptre
of the conquered prince, and richly embroidered stuffs.
The fields of the vanquished province were further
measured by the Egyptian surveyors, and the amount
of taxation annually due from them was fixed. More
than 208,000 measures of wheat were moreover carried

86 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

off to Egypt from the plain of Megiddo. The
Canaanitish power was completely broken, and
Thothmes was now free to extend his empire further
to the north.

Accordingly in the following year (1479 B.C.) we
find him receiving tribute from the Assyrian king.
This consisted of leather bracelets, various kinds of
wood, and chariots. It was probably in this time
that Carchemish on the Euphrates was taken, the
city being stormed from the riverside. Five years
later the first part of the annals was engraved on
the wall of the new temple of Amon at Karnak, and
it concluded with an account of the campaign of the
year. This had been undertaken in Northern Syria,
and had resulted in the capture of Uarrt and Tunip,
now Ten nib, to the north-west of Aleppo. No less
than one hundred pounds of silver and as many of
gold were taken from Tunip, as well as lapis-lazuli
from Babylonia, and malachite from the Sinaitic
peninsula, together with vessels of iron and bronze.
Some ships also were captured, laden with slaves,
bronze, lead, white gold, and other products of the
Greek seas. On the march home the Egyptian army
took possession of Arvad, and seized its rich stores
of wheat and wine. "Then the soldiers caroused and
anointed themselves with oil as they used to do on
feast days in the land of Egypt."

The next year Kadesh on the Orontes, near the
Lake of Horns, was attacked and destroyed, its trees
were cut down and its corn carried away. From
Kadesh Thothmes proceeded to the land of Phoenicia,
and took the cities of Zemar (now Sumra) and Arvad.
The heirs of four of the conquered princes were
carried as hostages to Egypt, "so that when one of

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 87

these kings should die, then the Pharaoh should take
his son and put him in his stead."

In 1472 B.C. the land of the Amorites was reduced,
or rather that part of it which was known as Takhis,
the Thahash of Genesis xxii. 24, on the shores of the
Lake of Merna, in which we should probably see the
Lake of Horns. Nearly 500 prisoners were led to
Egypt. The Syrian princes now came to offer their
gifts to the conqueror, bringing with them, among
other things, more than 760 pounds of silver, 19
chariots covered with silver ornaments, and 41
leathern collars covered with bronze scales. At the
same time the whole country was thoroughly organ-
ized under the new Egyptian administration. Mili-
tary roads were constructed and provided with
posting-houses, at each of which relays of horses were
kept in readiness, as well as "the necessary provision
of bread of various sorts, oil, balsam, wine, honey,
and fruits." The quarries of the Lebanon were
further required to furnish the Pharaoh with limestone
for his buildings in Egypt and elsewhere.

Two years later Thothmes was again in Syria. He
made his way as far as the Euphrates, and there on
the eastern bank erected a stele by the side of one
which his father Thothmes II. had already set up.
The stele was an imperial boundary-stone marking
the frontier of the Egyptian empire. It was just such
another stele that Hadad-ezer of Zobah was intending
to restore in the same place when he was met and
defeated by David (2 Sam. viii. 3).

The Pharaoh now took ship and descended the
Euphrates, "conquering the towns and ploughing
up the fields of the king of Naharaim." He then
re-ascended the stream to the city of Ni, where he

88 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

placed another stele, in proof that the boundary of
Egypt had been extended thus far. Elephants still
existed in the neighbourhood, as they continued to
do four and a half centuries later in the time of the
Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I. Thothmes amused
himself by hunting them, and no less than 120 were
slain.

On his way home the tribute and "yearly tax" of
the inhabitants of the Lebanon was brought to him,
and the corv^e-work annually required from them was
also fixed. Thothmes indulged his taste for natural
history by receiving as part of the tribute various
birds which were peculiar to Syria, or at all events
were unknown in Egypt, and which, we are told,
"were dearer to the king than anything else." He
had already established zoological and botanical
gardens in Thebes, and the strange animals and
plants which his campaigns furnished for them were
depicted on the walls of one of the chambers in the
temple he built at Karnak.

Before his return to Egypt he received the tribute
of "the king of Sangar," or Shinar, i.e. Babylonia,
and "of the land of Khata the greater." The first
consisted for the most part of lapis-lazuli, real and
artificial, of which the most prized was "the lapis-
lazuli of Babylon." Among the gifts was "a ram's
head of real lapis-lazuli, 15 pounds in weight." The
land of the Hittites, "the greater," so called to dis-
tinguish it from the lesser Hittite land in the south
of Palestine, sent 8 rings of silver, 400 pounds in
weight, besides "a great piece of crystal."

The following year Thothmes marched through
"the land of Zahi," the "dry land" of the Phoenician
coast, to Northern Syria, where he punished the king

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 89

of Anugas or Nukhasse, who had shown symptoms
of rebellion. Large quantities of gold and bronze
were carried off, as well as 15 chariots, plated with
gold and silver, 6 iron tent-poles studded with
precious stones, and 70 asses. Lead and various kinds
of wood and stone, together with 608 jars of Lebanon
wine, 2080 jars of oil, and 690 jars of balsam, were
also received from Southern Syria, and posting-
houses were established along the roads of the land
of Zahi. A fleet of Phoenician merchant vessels was
next sent to Egypt laden with logs of wood from
the forests of Palestine and the Lebanon for the build-
ings of the king. At the same time, "the king of
Cyprus," which was now an Egyptian possession,
forwarded his tribute to the Pharaoh, consisting of
108 bricks of copper 2040 pounds in weight, 5 bricks
of lead nearly 29,000 pounds in weight, no pounds
of lapis-lazuli, an elephant's tusk, and other objects
of value.

The next year (1468 B.C.) there was a campaign
against the king of Naharaim who had collected his
soldiers and horses "from the extreme ends of the
world." But the Mesopotamian army was utterly
defeated. Its booty fell into the hands of the
Egyptians, who, however, took only ten prisoners,
which looks as if, after all, the battle was not on a
very large scale.

In 1464 B.C. Thothmes was again in Northern Syria.
Among the booty acquired during the expedition were
"bowls with goats' heads on them, and one with a
lion's head, the work of the land of Zahi." Horses,
asses and oxen, 522 slaves, 156 jars of wine, 1752 jars
of butter, 5 elephants' tusks, 2822 pounds of gold,
besides copper and lead, were among the spoils of the

go PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

campaign. The annual tribute was also received from
Cyprus, consisting this time of copper and mares, as
well as from Aripakh, a district in the Taurus.

The next year the Pharaoh led his troops against
some country, the name of which is lost, in "the land
of the hostile Shasu " or Beduin. The plunder which
was carried off from it shows that it was somewhere in
Syria, probably in the region of the Lebanon. Gold
and silver, a silver double-handled cup with a bull's
head, iron, wine, balsam, oil, butter and honey, were
among the spoils of the war. Tribute arrived also
from "the king of the greater Hittite land," which
included a number of negro slaves.

Revolt, however, now broke out in the north. Tunip
rebelled, as did also the king of Kadesh, who built
a "new" fortress to protect his city from attack.
Thothmes at once marched against them by the road
along "the coast," which led him through the country
of the Fenkhu or Phoenicians. First he fell upon the
towns of Alkana and utterly destroyed them, and
then poured his troops into the neighbouring land of
Tunip. The city of Tunip was taken and burnt, its
crops were trodden under-foot, its trees cut down, and
its inhabitants carried into slavery. Then came the
turn of Kadesh. The "new" fortress fell at the first
assault, and the whole country was compelled to
submit.

The king of Assyria again sent presents to the
Pharaoh, which the Egyptian court regarded in the
light of tribute. They consisted chiefly of large
blocks of "real lapis-lazuli " as well as "lapis-lazuli
of Babylon." More valuable gifts came from the sub-
ject princes of Syria. Foremost among these was "a
king's daughter all glorious with [a vesture of] gold."

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 91

Then there were four chariots plated with gold and
six chariots of gold, iron armour inlaid with gold, a
jug of silver, a golden helmet inlaid with lapis-lazuli,
wine, honey and balsam, ivory and various kinds of
wood, wheat in such quantities that it could not be
measured, and the sixty-five slaves who had to be
furnished each year as part of the annual tax.

The annals of the next two years are in too
mutilated a condition to yield much information.
Moreover, the campaigns carried on in them were
mainly in the Soudan. In 1461 B.C. the record closes.
It was in that year that the account of the Pharaoh's
victories "which he had gained from the 23rd until
the (4)2nd year " 1 were engraved upon the wall of
the temple. And the chronicle concludes with the
brief but expressive words, "Thus hath he done : may
he live for ever ! "

Thothmes, indeed, did not live for ever, but he
survived the completion of his temple fourteen years.
His death was followed by the revolt of Northern
Syria, and the first achievement of his son and suc-
cessor, Amenophis II., was its suppression. Ni and
Ugarit, the centres of disaffection, were captured and
punished, and among the prisoners from Ugarit were
640 "Canaanite" merchants with their slaves. The
name of Canaanite had thus already acquired that
secondary meaning of "merchant" which we find
in the Old Testament (Is. xxiii. 8; Ezek. xvii. 4). It
is a significant proof of the commercial activity and
trading establishments of the Canaanite race through-
out the civilized world. They had already made their

■ The inscription has "32nd year," but as the wars extended
beyond the 40th year of the king's reign this must be a sculptor's

92 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

way along the coasts and islands of the eastern
Mediterranean in search of the purple dye for which
they were famous. It was not always, however, that
the Canaanites were so honourably distinguished.
At times the name was equivalent to that of "slave"
rather than of " merchant," as in a papyrus l where
mention is made of the Kan'amu or "Canaanite slaves
from Khal." So, too, in another papyrus we hear
of a slave called Saruraz the son of Naqati, whose
mother was Kadi from the land of Arvad. The
Egyptian wars in Palestine must necessarily have
resulted in the enslavement of many of its inhabit-
ants, and, as we have seen, a certain number of
young slaves formed part of the annual tax levied
upon Syria.

The successors of Thothmes III. extended the
Egyptian empire far to the south in the Soudan.
But its Asiatic limits had already been reached.
Palestine, along with Phoenicia, the land of the
Amorites and the country east of the Jordan, was
constituted into an Egyptian province and kept
strictly under Egyptian control. Further north the
connection with the imperial government was looser.
There were Egyptian fortresses and garrisons here
and there, and certain important towns like Tunip,
near Aleppo, and Qatna, on the Khabur, were placed
under Egyptian prefects. But elsewhere the con-
quered populations were allowed to remain under their
native kings. In some instances, as, for example, in
Anugas or Nukhasse, the kings were little more than
satraps of the Pharaoh, but in other instances, like
Alasiya in Cilicia, they resembled the rulers of the
protected states in modern India. In fact, the king
1 Anast. 4, 16, 2.

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 93

of Alasiya calls the Pharaoh his "brother," and except
for the obligation of paying tribute was practically an
independent sovereign.

The Egyptian dominion was acknowledged as far
north as Mount Amanus. Carchemish, soon to be-
come a Hittite stronghold, was in Egyptian hands,
and the Hittites themselves had not yet emerged from
the fortresses of the Taurus. Their territory was still
confined to Kataonia and Armenia Minor between
Melit^ne and the Saros, and they courted the favour
of the Egyptian monarch by sending him gifts.
Thothmes would have refused to believe that before
many years were over they would wrest Northern
Syria from his successors, and contend on equal terms
with the Egyptian Pharaoh.

The Egyptian possessions on the east bank of
Euphrates lay along the course of the Khabur,
towards the oasis of Singar or Shinar. North of the
Belikh came the powerful kingdom of Mitanni, Aram-
Naharaim as it is called in the Old Testament, which
was never subdued by the Egyptian arms, and whose
royal family intermarried with the successors of
Thothmes. Mitanni, the capital, stood nearly oppo-
site Carchemish, which thus protected the Egyptian
frontier on the east.

Southward of the Belikh the frontier was formed
by the desert. Syria, Bashan, Ammon, and Moab
were all included in the Pharaoh's empire. But there
it came to an end. Mount Seir was never conquered
by the Egyptians. The "city" of Edom appears in
one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets as a foreign state
whose inhabitants wage war against the Egyptian
territory. The conquest of the Edomites in their
mountain fastnesses would have been a matter of diffi-

94 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

culty, nor would anything have been gained by it.
Edom was rich neither agriculturally nor commerci-
ally; it was, in fact, a land of barren mountains, and
the trade which afterwards passed through the Arabah
to Elath and Ezion-geber in the Gulf of Aqabah was
already secured to the Egyptians through their pos-
session of the Gulf of Suez. The first and last of the
Pharaohs, so far as we know, who ventured on a cam-
paign against the wild tribes of Mount Seir, was
Ramses III. of the twentieth dynasty, and his cam-
paign was merely a punitive one. No attempt to
incorporate the "Red Land" into his dominions was
ever made by an Egyptian king.

The Sinaitic peninsula, the province of Mafkat or
"Malachite," as it was called, had been in the pos-
session of the Egyptians since the time of the kings
of the first dynasty, and it continued to be regarded
as part of the Egyptian kingdom up to the age of
the Ptolemies. The earliest of Egyptian rock-
sculptures is engraved in the peninsula, and repre-
sents Snefru, the founder of the fourth dynasty,
slaughtering the Beduin who inhabited it. Its pos-
session was valued on account of its mines of copper
and malachite. These were worked by the Egyptian
kings with the help of convict labour. Garrisons were
established to protect them and the roads which led
to them, colonies of officials grew up at their side,
and temples were built dedicated to the deities of
Egypt. Even as late as the reign of Ramses III.
the amount of minerals produced by the mines was
enormous. They existed for the most part on the
western side of the peninsula, opposite the Egyptian
coast; but Ramses III. also opened copper mines in
the land of 'Ataka further east, and the name of the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 95

goddess Hathor in hieroglyphics has been found by
Dr. Friedmann on the shores of Midian.

Vanquished Syria was made to contribute to the
endowments of the Egyptian temples. Thus the
temple of Amon at Thebes was endowed by Thothmes
III. with the revenues of the three cities Anugas,
Inu'am, and Harankal ; while Seti I., the father of
Ramses II., bestowed upon it "all the silver, gold,
lapis-lazuli, malachite, and precious stones which he
carried off from the humbled land of Syria." Temples
of the Egyptian gods, as well as towns, were built in
Syria itself; Meneptah founded a city in the land of
the Amorites; Ramses III. erected a temple to Amon
in "the land of Canaan, great as the horizon of heaven
above, to which the people of Syria come with their
gifts " ; and hieroglyphic inscriptions lately discovered
at Gaza show that another temple had been built there
by Amenophis II. to the goddess Mut.

Amenophis had suppressed the rebellion in North-
ern Syria with little trouble. Seven Amorite kings
were carried prisoners to Egypt from the land of
Takhis, and taken up the river as far as Thebes.
There six of them were hung outside the walls of the
city, as the body of Saul was hung by the Philistines
outside the walls of Beth-shan, while the seventh was
conveyed to Napata in Ethiopia, and there punished
in the same way in order to impress a lesson of obedi-
ence upon the negroes of the Soudan.

Amenophis II. was succeeded by Thothmes IV.,
who was called upon to face a new enemy, the Hit-
tites. It was at the commencement of his reign that
they first began to descend from their mountain
homes, and the frontier city of Tunip had to bear
the brunt of the attack. It was probably in order to

96 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

strengthen himself against these formidable foes that
the Pharaoh married the daughter of the king of
Mitanni, who changed her name to Mut-em-ua. It
was the beginning of those inter-marriages with the
princes of Asia which led to the Asiatized court and
religion of Amenophis IV., and finally to the over-
throw of the eighteenth dynasty.

The son of Mut-em-ua was Amenophis III., whose
long reign of thirty-seven years was as brilliant and
successful as that of Thothmes III. At Soleb between
the second and third cataracts he built a temple to
his own deified self, and engraved upon its columns
the names of his vassal states. Among them are
Tunip and Kadesh, Carchemish and Apphadana, on
the Khabur. Shinar, Assyria, Naharaim, and the
Hittites also appear among them, but this must be
on the strength of the tribute or presents which had
been received from them. The Pharaoh filled his
harim with Asiatic princesses. His queen Teie, who
exercised an important influence upon both religion
and politics, came from Asia, and among his wives
were the sisters and daughters of the kings of Baby-
lonia and Mitanni, while one of his own daughters
was married to Burna-buryas the Babylonian sove-
reign. His marriage with Gilu-khipa, the daughter of
Sutarna, king of Aram-Naharaim, was celebrated on
a scarab, where it is further related that she was
accompanied to Egypt by three hundred and seven-
teen "maids of honour." Besides allying himself in
marriage to the royal houses of Asia, Amenophis III.
passed a good deal of his time in Syria and Meso-
potamia, amusing himself with hunting lions. During
the first ten years of his reign he boasts of having
killed no less than one hundred and two of them. It

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 97

was in the last of these years that he married queen
Teie, who is said on scarabs to have been the daughter
of "Yua and Tua." Their tomb has been discovered
at Thebes by Mr. Theodore M. Davis, filled with
precious objects which are now in the Museum
of Cairo. They were neither of them royal person-
ages, nor indeed persons of any rank in Egyptian
society, what rank they possessed being derived from
the marriage of their daughter with the Pharaoh.
They were, in fact, foreigners, as is shown partly by
the varying attempts made by the Egyptian scribes
to write their names, which are not spelt in a uniform
manner even on the objects found in their tomb, and
partly by the non-Egyptian form of their skulls.
Dr. Elliott Smith, the chief anthropological authority
on the subject, has stated that the cranial character-
istics point to Asia Minor; it is possible, therefore,
that Teie was actually of Mitannian origin. That
Amenophis did not disdain marrying into the royal
house of Mitanni we know from the fact that one of
his wives was the daughter of the Mitannian king,
though she was not the chief queen.

When Amenophis III. died his son Amenophis IV.
seems to have been still a minora At all events the
queen-mother Teie became all-powerful in the govern-
ment of the state. Her son, the new Pharaoh, had
been brought up in the religious beliefs of his mother,
and had inherited the ideas and tendencies of his
Asiatic forefathers. A plaster-cast of his face, taken
immediately after death, was discovered by Prof.
Petrie at Tel el-Amarna, and it is the face of a refined
and thoughtful theorist, of a philosopher rather than
of a king, earnest in his convictions almost to
fanaticism.

98 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Amenophis IV. undertook no less a task than that
of reforming the State religion of Egypt. For many
centuries the religion of the priests and scribes had
been inclining to pantheism. Inside the temples there
had been an esoteric teaching, that the various deities
of Egypt were but manifestations of the one supreme
God. But it had hardly passed outside them. With
the accession of Amenophis IV. to the throne came
a change. The young king boldly rejected the reli-
gion of which he was officially the head, and pro-
fessed himself a worshipper of the one God whose
visible semblance was the solar disk. Alone of the
deities of Egypt, Ra, the ancient Sun-god of Heli-
opolis, was acknowledged to be the representative of
the true God. It was the Baal-worship of Syria,
modified by the philosophic conceptions of Egypt.
The Aten-Ra of the "heretic " Pharaoh was an Asiatic
Baal, but unlike the Baal of Canaan he stood alone;
there were no other Baals, no Baalim, by the side
of him.

Amenophis was not content with preaching and
encouraging the new faith ; he sought to force it
upon his subjects. The other gods of Egypt were
proscribed, and the name and head of Amon, the
patron god of Thebes, to whom his ancestors had
ascribed their power and victories, were erased from
the monuments wherever they occurred. Even his
own father's name was not spared, and the emissaries
of the king, from one end of the country to the other,
defaced that portion of it which contained the name
of the god. His own name was next changed, and
Amenophis IV. became Khu-n-Aten, "the splendour
of the solar disk."

Khu-n-Aten 's attempt to overthrow the ancient

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 99

faith of Egypt was naturally resisted by the powerful
priesthood of Thebes. A religious war was declared
for the first time, so far as we know, in the history
of mankind. On the one side a fierce persecution
was directed against the adherents of the old creed;
on the other side every effort was made to impede
and defeat the Pharaoh. His position grew daily
more insecure, and at last he turned his back on the
capital of his fathers, and built himself a new city
far away to the north. The priests of Amon had
thus far triumphed; the old idolatrous worship was
carried on once more in the great temple of Karnak,
though its official head was absent, and Khu-n-Aten
with his archives and his court had fled to a safer
home. Upper Egypt was left to its worship of Amon
and Min, while the king established himself nearer
his Canaanite possessions.

Here on the eastern bank of the Nile, about mid-
way between Minyeh and Siut, the new capital was
founded on a strip of land protected from attack by
a semi-amphitheatre of cliffs. The city, with its
palaces and gardens, extended nearly two miles in
length along the river bank. In its midst rose the
temple of the new god of Egypt, and hard by the
palace of the king. Both were brilliant with painting
and sculpture, and inlaid work in precious stones and
gold. Even the floors were frescoed, while the walls
and columns were enamelled or adorned with the
most costly materials that the Egyptian world could
produce. Here and there were statues of alabaster,
of bronze or of gold, some of them almost Greek in
form and design. Along with the reform in religion
there had gone a reform in art. The old conventional-
ized art of Egypt was abandoned, and a new art had
Q 2

ioo PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

been introduced which aimed at imitating nature with
realistic fidelity.

The mounds which mark the site of Khu-n-Aten's
city are now known as Tel el-Amarna. It had a brief
but brilliant existence of about thirty years. Then
the enemies of the Pharaoh and his work of reform
finally prevailed, and his city with its temple and
palaces was levelled to the ground. It is from among
its ruins that the wondering fellah and explorer of
to-day exhume the gorgeous relics of its past.

But among these relics none have proved more
precious than the clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform
characters, which have revolutionized our conceptions
of the ancient East. They were preserved in the
Foreign Office of the day. This formed part of the
public buildings connected with the palace, and the
bricks of which it was built were stamped with an
inscription describing its character. Many of the
tablets had been brought from the archive chamber
of Thebes, but the greater part of the collection
belongs to the reign of Khu-n-Aten himself. It con-
sists almost entirely of official correspondence; of
letters from the kings of Babylonia and Assyria, of
Mesopotamia and Kappadokia, and of despatches
from the Egyptian governors and vassal-princes in
Syria and Palestine. They furnish us with a living
and unexpected picture of Canaan about 1400 B.C.

Fragments of dictionaries for the use of the scribes
have also been recovered from the debris of the build-
ing, as well as the seal of a servant of Samas-akh-
iddin who looked after the cuneiform correspondence.
Like several of the Canaanitish governors, he bore a
Babylonian name. Even the brother of Amenophis
HI., who had been made king of Nukhasse, had

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 101

received the Babylonian name of Rimmon-nirari. No
stronger proof could be found of the extent and
strength of Babylonian influence in the West.

At Khut-Aten, as the "heretic" Pharaoh called his
new capital, he was surrounded by the adherents of the
new faith. Many of them were doubtless Egyptians,
but many, perhaps the majority, were of Asiatic ex-
traction. Already under his father and grandfather
the court had been filled with Canaanites and other
natives of Asia, and the great offices of state had
been occupied by them. Now under Khu-n-Aten the
Asiatic character of the government was increased
tenfold. The native Egyptian had to make way for
the foreigner, and the rule of the Syrian stranger
which seemed to have been expelled with the Hyksos
was restored under another form. Canaan was
nominally a subject province of Egypt, but in reality
it had led its conqueror captive. A semi-Asiatic
Pharaoh was endeavouring to force an Asiatic form
of faith upon his subjects, and entrusting his govern-
ment to Asiatic officials ; even art had ceased to be
Egyptian and had put on an Asiatic dress.

The tombs of Khu-n-Aten's followers are cut in the
cliffs at the back of the city, while his own sepulchre
is towards the end of a long ravine which runs out
into the eastern desert between two lofty lines of pre-
cipitous rock. But few of them are finished, and the
sepulchre of the king himself, magnificent in its
design, is incomplete and mutilated. The sculptures
on the walls have been broken, and the granite sarco-
phagus in which the body of the great king rested
has been shattered into fragments before it could
be lifted into the niche where it was intended to
stand. The royal mummy was torn into shreds,

102 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and the porcelain figures buried with it dashed to the
ground.

It is clear that the death of Khu-n-Aten must have
been quickly followed by the triumph of his enemies.
His capital was overthrown, the stones of his temple
carried away to Thebes, there to adorn the sanctuary
of the victorious Amon, and the adherents of his
reform either slain or driven into exile. The ven-
geance executed upon them was national as well as
religious. It meant not only a restoration of the
national faith, but also the restoration of the native
Egyptian to the government of his country. The
feelings which inspired it were similar to those which
underlay the movement of Arabi in our own time,
and there was no English army to stand in the way
of its success. The rise of the nineteenth dynasty
represents the triumph of the national cause.

The cuneiform letters of Tel el-Amarna show that
already before Khu-n-Aten's death his empire and
power were breaking up. Letter after letter is sent
to him from the governors in Canaan with urgent
requests for troops. The Hittites were attacking the
empire in the north, and rebels were overthrowing it
within. "If auxiliaries come this year," writes Ebed-
Kheba of Jerusalem, "the provinces of the king my
lord will be preserved ; but if no auxiliaries come the
provinces of the king my lord will be destroyed." To
thes~ entreaties no answer could be returned. There
was civil and religious war in Egypt itself, and
the army was needed to defend the Pharaoh at
home.

The picture of Canaan presented to us by the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence has been supplemented by
the discovery of Lachish. Five years ago Prof.

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 103

Flinders Petrie undertook to excavate for the Pales-
tine Exploration Fund in the lofty mound of Tel
el-Hesi in Southern Palestine. Tel el-Hesi stands
midway between Gaza and Hebron on the edge of the
Judaean mountains, and overlooking a torrent stream.
His excavations resulted in the discovery of successive
cities built one upon the ruins of the other, and in
the probability that the site was that of Lachish. The
excavations were resumed by Mr. Bliss in the follow-
ing year, and the probability was raised to practical
certainty. The lowest of the cities was the Lachish
of the Amorite period, whose crude brick walls, nearly
twenty-nine feet in thickness, have been brought to
light, while its pottery has revealed to us for the first
time the characteristics of Amorite manufacture. The
huge walls bear out the testimony of the Israelitish
spies, that the cities of the Amorites were "great and
walled up to heaven " (Deut. i. 28). They give in-
dications, however, that in spite of their strength the
fortresses they enclosed must have been captured more
than once. Doubtless this was during the age of the
Egyptian wars in Canaan.

As at Troy, it is probable that it was only the
citadel which was thus strongly fortified. Below it
was the main part of the town, the inhabitants of
which took refuge in the citadel when an enemy threat-
ened to attack them. The fortified part, indeed, was
not of very large extent. Its ruins measured only
about two hundred feet each way, while the enclosure
within which it stands is a quarter of a mile in
diameter. Here a regular series of pottery has been
found, dating from the post-exilic age through suc-
cessive strata back to the primitive Amoritish fortress.
To Prof. Petrie belongs the credit of determining the

104 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

characteristics of these various strata, and fixing their
approximate age.

The work begun by Prof. Petrie was continued by-
Mr. Bliss. Deep down among the ruins of the Amor-
itish town he found objects which take us back to the
time of Khu-n-Aten and his predecessors. They con-
sist of Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth
dynasty, and on one of the beads are the name and
title of "the royal wife Teie." Along with them were
discovered beads of amber which came from the Baltic
as well as seal-cylinders, some of them imported from
Babylonia, others western imitations of Babylonian
work. The Babylonian cylinders belong to the period
which extends from 3000 to 1500 B.C., while the imita-
tions are similar in style to those which have been
found in the pre-historic tombs of Cyprus and
Phoenicia.

But there was one discovery made by Mr. Bliss
which far surpasses in interest all the rest. It is that
of a cuneiform tablet, similar in character, in contents,
and in age to those which have come from Tel el-
Amarna. Even the Egyptian governor mentioned in
it was already known to us from the Tel el-Amarna
correspondence as the governor of Lachish. One of
the cuneiform letters now preserved at Berlin was
written by him, and Ebed-Kheba informs us that he
was subsequently murdered by the people of his own
city.

Here is a translation of the letter discovered at Tel
el-Hesi 1 : —

1 This translation differs in some respects from that previously
given by me, as it is based on the copy of the text made from the
original at Constantinople by Dr. Scheil {Recueil de Travaux tela-
tifs a la Philologie et a P Archdologie dgyptiennes et assyriennesy xv.

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 105

"[To] the officer . . . [thus] speaks . . . abi. At
thy feet I prostrate myself. Verily thou knowest that
Dan-Hadad and Zimrida have made conspiracy
together, and Dan-Hadad says to Zimrida : Send
Isyara to me, O my father, [and] give me [3] shields
(?) and 3 slings and 3 falchions, since I am gone out
against the country of the king and it has acted
against me ; but now I will get it back. As regards the
scheme, he who has devised the scheme is Ilu-abu :
send him therefore unto me. And [now] I am
despatching Rabi-ilu . . . will convey to him . . .
these words."

Yisyara was the name of an Amorite, as we learn
from one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, where he is
mentioned along with other rebels as being sent in
fetters of bronze to the king. Of Dan-Hadad we
know nothing further, but Zimrida's letter is as
follows : —

"To the king my lord, my god, my Sun-god, the
Sun-god who is from heaven, thus (writes) Zimridi,
the governor of the city of Lachish. Thy servant, the
dust of thy feet, at the feet of the king my lord, the
Sun-god from heaven, bows himself seven times seven.
I have very deligently listened to the words of the
messenger whom the king my lord has sent to me,
and now I have despatched (a mission) according to
his message."

It was towards the end of Khu-n-Aten's reign, when
the Egyptian empire was falling to pieces, that the
murder of Zimrida took place. Ebed-Kheba thus
describes it in a letter to the secretary of the Pharaoh :

3> 4. I37)- As I stated at the time, my copy was made from a cast
and was therefore uncertain in several places. I am doubtful whether
even now the published text is correct throughout.

106 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

"The Khabiri (or Confederates) are capturing the
fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains
among them to the king my lord; all are destroyed.
Behold, Turbazu thy officer [has fallen] in the great
gate of the city of Zelah. Behold, the servants who
acted against the king have slain Zimrida of Lachish.
They have murdered Jephthah-Hadad thy officer in
the gate of the city of Zelah."

We hear of another governor of Lachish, Yabni-el
by name, but he probably held office before Zimrida.
At all events the following despatch of his has been
preserved : —

"To the king my lord, my god, my Sun-god the
Sun-god who is from heaven, thus (writes) Yabni-el, the
governor of the city of Lachish, thy servant, the dust
of thy feet, the groom of thy horses ; at the feet of the
king my lord, my god, my Sun-god, the Sun-god who
is from heaven, seven times seven I bow myself.
Glorious and supreme [art thou]. As to the repre-
sentative of the king my lord, whom he has sent to
me, now have I heard all the words which Maya the
prefect of the king has spoken to me. Now have I
done everything."

Zimrida of Lachish must be distinguished from
another Canaanite of the same name who was
governor of Sidon. This latter was a personal enemy
of Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters
to Khu-n-Aten form a considerable portion of the
Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of Rib-
Hadad originally extended over the greater part of
Phoenicia, and included the strong fortress of Zemar
or Simyra in the mountains. One by one, however,
his cities were taken from him by his adversaries
whom he accuses of rebellion against the Pharaoh.

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 107

His letters to Egypt are accordingly filled with im-
ploring appeals for help. But none was sent, and
as his enemies equally professed their loyalty to the
Egyptian government, it is doubtful whether this was
because the Pharaoh suspected Rib-Hadad himself
of disaffection or because no troops could be spared.

Rib-Hadad had been appointed to his post by
Amenophis III., and in one of his letters he looks
back regretfully on "the good old times." When his
letters were written he was old and sick. Abimelech,
the governor of Tyre, was almost the only friend who
remained to him. Not content with fomenting rebel-
lion in his district, and taking his cities from him,
his enemies accused him to the Pharaoh of disloyalty
and misdoing. Those accusations were in some cases
founded on truth. He confesses to having fled from
his city, but he urges that it was to save his life. The
troops he had begged for had not been sent to him,
and he could no longer defend either his city or him-
self. He also alleges that the excesses committed by
some of his servants had been without his knowledge.
This seems to have been in answer to a despatch of
Ammunira, the prefect of Beyrout, in which he in-
formed the king that he was keeping the brother of
the governor of Gebal as a hostage, and that the
latter had been intriguing against the government in
the land of the Amorites.

Chief among the adversaries of Rib-Hadad was
Ebed-Asherah, who belonged to the ancient royal
house of Amurru and was king of the Amorites.
Several of his sons are mentioned, but the ablest and
most influential of them was Aziru or Ezer, who pos-
sessed a considerable amount of power. The whole
family, while professing to be the obedient servants

108 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

of the Pharaoh, nevertheless acted with a good deal
of independence, and sought to aggrandise themselves
at the expense of the neighbouring governors. They
had at their disposal a large body of "plunderers,"
or Beduin from the eastern desert, and Rib-Hadad
accuses them of forming secret alliances with the
kings of Babylonia, of Mitanni and of the Hittites.
The authority of Aziru extended to the northern
frontier of the empire ; we find him sent with the
Egyptian general Khatip, or Hotep, to oppose the
Hittite invasion, and writing to the king as well as
to the prime minister Dudu to explain why they had
not succeeded in doing so. Tunip had been invested
by the enemy, and Aziru fears that it may fall into
their hands. The Hittites had already made their way
into the land of Nukhasse, and were from thence
marching up into the land of the Amorites.

On the heels of these despatches came a long letter
from the people of Tunip, complaining of the conduct
of Aziru, and protesting against his doing to them
what he had done to the city of Ni. He was at the
time in the land of the Hittites, doubtless carrying on
the war against the general enemy.

To these accusations Aziru made a full reply. "O
my lord," he begins, "hearken not to the wicked men
who slander me before the king my lord : I am thy
servant for ever." He had been charged with want
of respect to the Pharaoh, on the ground that he had
not received the royal commissioner Khani on his
arrival at Tunip. But, he replies, he did not know
that the commissioner was coming, and as soon as
he heard that he was on the road he "followed him,
but failed to overtake him." In his absence Khani
was duly received by the brethren of Aziru, and Batti-

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 109

el (or Bethuel) furnished him with meat and bread
and wine. Moreover, on his way home he was met
by Aziru himself, who provided the commissioner
with horses and mules. A more serious charge was
that of seizing the city of Zemar. To this Aziru
answers that it was done in self-defence, as the kings
of Xukhasse had always been hostile to him, and had
robbed him of his cities at the instigation of Khatip,
who had also carried away all the silver and gold
which the king had placed under his care. Moreover
he had not really seized Zemar, but had won the
people over to himself by means of gifts. Lastly, he
denied the accusation that he had received the envoy
of the king of the Hittites and refused to receive the
Egyptian messenger, although the country he
governed belonged to the king, and the king had
appointed him over it. Let the Egyptian envoy make
inquiries, he urges, and he will find that Aziru has
acted uprightly.

The capture of Zemar forms the burden of many
of the letters of Rib-Hadad. It had been besieged
for two months by Ebed-Asherah, who had vainly
attempted to corrupt the loyalty of the governor of
Gebal. For the time Rib-Hadad managed to save
the city, but Aziru allied himself with Arvad and the
neighbouring towns of Northern Phoenicia, captured
twelve of Rib-Hadad's men, demanded a ransom of
fifty pieces of silver for each of them, and seized the
ships of Zemar, Beyrout, and Sidon. The forces sent
from Gebal to Zemar were made prisoners by the
Amorite chief at Abiliya, and the position of Rib-
Hadad daily became more desperate. Pa-Hor, the
Egyptian governor of Kumidi, joined his opponents,
and induced the Sute or Beduin to attack his Sar-

no PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

dinian guards. Yapa-Hadad, another governor, fol-
lowed the example of Pa-Hor, and Zimridi, the
governor of Sidon, had from the first been his enemy.
Tyre alone remained faithful to his cause, though an
" Ionian " who had been sent there on a mission from
Egypt had handed over horses, chariots, and men to
Ebed-Asherah, and it was accordingly to Tyre that
Rib-Hadad sent his family for safety. Tyre, however,
now began to suffer like Gebal in consequence of the
alliance between Zimridi and Ebed-Asherah.

Zemar eventually fell into the hands of Ebed-
Asherah and his sons, its prefect Khayapa or Khaip
being slain during the assault. Abimelech, the
governor of Tyre, accuses Zimridi of having been the
cause. Whether this were so or not, it placed the
whole of Northern Phoenicia under the government
or the influence of the Amorite chiefs. If Rib-Hadad
spoke the truth, Ebed-Asherah had "sent to the
soldiers in Bit-Ninip, saying, 4 Gather yourselves
together, and let us march up against Gebal, if therein
are any who have saved themselves from our hands,
and we will appoint governors throughout all the
provinces; ' so all the provinces went over to the
Beduin." Provisions began to be scarce in Gebal,
and the governor writes to Egypt for corn.

Rib-Hadad now threatened the Pharaoh with
deserting to his enemies if succour was not forth-
coming immediately, and at the same time he appealed
to Amon-apt and Khayapa, the Egyptian commis-
sioners who had been sent to inquire into the condition
of affairs in Canaan. The appeal was so far success-
ful that tioops were despatched to Zemar. But it was
too late : along with Arka it had already been occu-
pied by Ebed-Asherah, who thereupon writes to the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN in

Pharaoh, protesting his loyalty to Khu-n-Aten, de-
claring that he is "the house-dog" of the king, and
that he guards the land of the Amorites for "the
king " his lord. He further calls on the Egyptian
commissioner Pakhanate, who had been ordered to
visit him, to bear witness that he was "defending"
Zemar and its fields for the king. That Pakhanate
was friendly to Ebed-Asherah may be gathered from
a despatch of Rib-Hadad, in which he accuses that
officer of refusing to send any troops to the relief of
Gebal, and of looking on while Zemar fell. Ebed-
Asherah goes on to beg the king to come himself,
and see with his own eyes how faithful a governor he
really was.

The letters of Abimelech of Tyre told a different
tale, and the unfortunate Pharaoh might well be
excused if he was as much puzzled as we are to
know on which side the truth lay, or whether in-
deed it lay on either. Abimelech had a grievance
of his own. As soon as Zimridi of Siron learned that
he had been appointed governor of Tyre, he seized
the neighbouring city of Usu, which seems to have
occupied the site of Palaetyros on the mainland,
thereby depriving the Tyrians of their supplies of
wood, food, and fresh water. The city of Tyre was
at the time confined to a rocky island, to which pro-
visions and water had to be conveyed in boats. Hence
the hostile occupation of the town on the mainland
caused many of its inhabitants to die of want. To
add to their difficulties, the city was blockaded by the
combined fleet of Sidon, Arvad, and Aziru. The
king of Sidon seems to have fled to Tyre for pro-
tection, while Abimelech reports that the king of
Hazor had joined the Beduin under Ebed-Asherah

ii2 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and his sons. It may be noted that a letter of this
very king of Hazor has been preserved, as well as
another from Ebed-Sullin, the Egyptian governor
of the city, whose powers were co-extensive with those
of the king.

Soon afterwards, however, the Sidonian ships were
compelled to retreat, and the Tyrian governor made
ready to pursue them. Meanwhile he sent his mes-
senger Elimelech to Khu-n-Aten with various pre-
sents, and gave the king an" account of what had been
happening in "Canaan." The Hittite troops had
departed, but Etagama — elsewhere called Aidhu-gama
— the pa-ur or "prince" of Kadesh, in the land of
Kinza, had joined Aziru in attacking Namya-waza,
the governor of Kumidi. Abimelech adds that his
rival Zimridi of Sidon had collected ships and men
from the cities of Aziru against him, and had con-
sequently defeated him, but if the Pharaoh would send
only four companies of troops to his rescue all would
be well.

Zimridi, however, was not behindhand in forward-
ing his version of events to the Egyptian court, and
assuring the king of his unswerving fidelity. "Verily
the king my lord knows," he says, "that the queen
of the city of Sidon is the handmaid of the king my
lord, who has given her into my hand, and that I
have hearkened to the words of the king my lord that
he would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced
and my head was exalted, and my eyes were enlight-
ened, and my ears heard the words of the king my
lord. . . . And the king my lord knows that hostility
is very strong against me; all the [fortresses] which
the king gave into [my hand] had revolted " to the
Beduin, but had been retaken by the commander of

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 113

the Egyptian forces. The letter throws a wholly
different light on the relations of the two rival parties
in Phoenicia.

The assertions of Rib-Hadad, however, are sup-
ported by those of his successor in the government of
Gebal, El-rabi-Hor. Rib-Hadad himself disappears
from the scene. He may have died, for he complains
that he is old and sick ; he may have been driven out
of Gebal, for in one of his despatches he states that
the city was inclined to revolt, while in another he
tells us that even his own brother had turned against
him and gone over to the Amorite faction. Or he
may have been displaced from his post; at all events,
we hear that the Pharaoh had written to him, saying
that Gebal was rebellious, and that there was a large
amount of royal property in it. We hear also that
Rib-Hadad had sent his son to the Egyptian court to
plead his cause there, alleging age and infirmities as
a reason for not going himself. However it may have
been, we find a new governor in Gebal, who bears the
hybrid name of El-rabi-Hor, "a great god is Horus."

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten's
mistrust of Gebal, which he calls "thy city and the
city of [thy] fathers," and to assert roundly that
"Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord."
Aziru had been massacring the kings of Ni, Arvad,
and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo of Num. xxii. 5),1 and
with the help of his Amorite forces was destroying
the cities of the Pharaoh. So El-rabi-Hor asks the
king not to heed anything the rebel may write about
his seizure of Zemar or his massacre of the royal
governors, but to send some troops to himself for the
defence of Gebal. In a second letter he reiterates his
1 See above, p. 55.

H

ii4 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

charges against Aziru, who had now "smitten " Adon,
the king of Arka, and possessed himself of Zemar and
the other towns of Phoenicia, so that Gebal "alone"
is on the side of the king, who "looks on" without
doing anything. Moreover a fresh enemy had arisen
in the person of Eta-gama of Kadesh, who had joined
himself with the king of the Hittites and the king
of Naharaim.

Letters to Khu-n-Aten from Akizzi, the governor
of Qatna, which, as we learn from the inscriptions of
Assur-natsir-pal, was situated on the Khabur, repre-
sent Aziru in the same light. First of all, the Egyptian
government is informed that the king of the Hittites,
together with Aidhu-gama (or Eta-gama) of Kadesh
has been invading Egyptian territory, burning its
cities, and carrying away from Qatna the image of
the Sun-god. Khu-n-Aten, it is urged, could not
allow the latter crime to go unpunished. The Sun-
god had created him and his father, and had caused
them to be called after his own name. He was the
supreme object of the Pharaoh's worship, the deity for
whose sake Khu-n-Aten had deserted Thebes.

The Hittite king had been joined in his invasion
of Syria by the governors of some otherwise unknown
northern cities, but the kings of Nukhasse, Ni, Zinzar
(the Sonzar of the Egyptian texts), and Tunanat (a
place otherwise unknown) remained faithful to the
Egyptian monarch. The rebel governors, however,
were in the land of Ube, — the Aup of the hiero-
glyphics,— which they were urging Aidhu-gama to
invade.

Another letter brings Aziru upon the scene. He
is accused of having invaded the land of Nukhasse,
and made prisoners of the people of Qatna. The

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 115

Pharaoh is prayed to rescue or ransom them, and to
send chariots and soldiers to the help of his Meso-
potamian subjects. If they come all the lands round
about will acknowledge him as lord, and he will be
lord also of Nukhasse ; if they do not come, the men
of Qatna will be forced to obey Aziru.

It is probable that the misdeeds of Aziru which
are here referred to were committed at the time he
was in Tunip, professedly protecting it against Hit-
tite attack. It would seem from what Akizzi says,
that instead of faithfully performing his mission, he
had aimed at establishing his own power in Northern
Syria. While nominally an officer of the Pharaoh,
he was really seeking to found an Amorite kingdom
in the north. In this he would have been a pre-
decessor of Og and Sihon, whose kingdoms were
built up on the ruins of the Egyptian empire.

A despatch, however, from Namya-waza, the
governor of Kumidi, sets the conduct of Aziru in a
more favourable light. It was written at a some-
what later time, when rebellion against the Egyptian
authority was spreading throughout Syria. A certain
Biridaswa had stirred up the city of Inu'am, and
after shutting its gate upon Namya-waza had entered
the city of Ashtaroth-Karnain in Bashan, and there
seized the chariots belonging to the Pharaoh, hand-
ing them over to the Beduin. He then joined the
kings of Buzruna (now Bosra) and Khalunni (near
the Wadi 'Allan), in a plot to murder Namya-waza,
who escaped, however, to Damascus, though his own
brothers turned against him. The rebels next attacked
Aziru, captured some of his soldiers, and in league
with Etu-gama wasted the district of Abitu. Etak-
kama, however, as Eru-gama spells his own name,

H 2

n6 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

professed to be a loyal servant of the Egyptian king,
and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters is from him.

We next hear of Namya-waza in Accho or Acre,
where he had taken refuge with Suta, or Seti, the
Egyptian commissioner. Seti had already been in
Jerusalem, and had been inquiring there into the
behaviour of Ebed-Kheba.

The picture of incipient anarchy and rebellion
which is set before us by the correspondence from
Phoenicia and Syria is repeated in that from the
centre and south of Palestine. In the centre the chief
seats of the Egyptian government were at Megiddo,
at Khazi (the Gaza of i Chron. vii. 28), near Shechem,
and at Gezer. Each of these towns was under an
Egyptian governor, specially appointed by the
Pharaoh.

The governor of Khazi bore the name of Suyarzana,
Megiddo was under the authority of Biridi, while the
governor of Gaza was Yapakhi. There are several
letters in the Tel el-Amarna collection from the latter
official, chiefly occupied with demands for help against
his enemies. The district under his control was
attacked by the Sute or Beduin, led by a certain
Labai or Labaya and his sons. Labai, though of
Hittite origin, was himself professedly an Egyptian
official, the Egyptian policy having been to give the
title of governor to the foreign mercenary leaders, and
to attach them to the Egyptian goverment by the com-
bined influence of bribery and fear. Labai accord-
ingly writes to the Pharaoh to defend himself against
the charges that had been brought against him, and
to assure Khu-n-Aten that he was "a faithful servant
of the king"; "I have not sinned, and I have not
offended, and I do not withhold my tribute or neglect

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 117

the command to turn back my officers." Labai, it
would seem, had been appointed by Amenophis III.
governor of Shunem and Beneberak (Josh. xix. 45),
and had captured the city of Gath-Rimmon when it
revolted against the Pharaoh; but after the death of
Amenophis he and his two sons had attacked the
Egyptian officials in unblushing style, and had taken
every opportunity of pillaging central and Southern
Palestine. As we shall see, Labai and his ally,
Malchiel, were among the chief adversaries of Ebed-
Kheba of Jerusalem.

On one occasion, however, Labai was actually made
prisoner by one of the Egyptian officers. There is a
letter from Biridi stating that Megiddo was threatened
by Labai, and that although the garrison had been
strengthened by the arrival of some Egyptian troops,
it was impossible to venture outside the gates of the
town for fear of the enemy, and that unless two more
regiments were sent the city itself was likely to fall.
Whether the additional forces were sent or not we do
not know. Labai, however, had to fly for his life
along with his confederate Yasdata, who was the
governor of some city near Megiddo, as we learn from
a letter of his in which he speaks of being with Biridi.
Of Yasdata we hear nothing further, but Labai was
captured in Megiddo by Zurata, the prefect of Acra,
who, under the pretext that he was going to send his
prisoner in a ship to Egypt, took him first to the town
of Khinatuna ('En'athon), and then to his own house,
where he was induced by a bribe to set him free along
with his companion, Hadad-mekhir (who, by the way,
has bequeathed to us two letters).

It was probably after this that Labai wrote to the
Pharaoh to exculpate himself, though his language,

n8 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

in spite of its conventional submissiveness, could not
have been very acceptable at the Egyptian court. In
one of his letters he excuses himself partly on the
ground that even "the food of his stomach " had been
taken from him, partly that he had attacked and en-
tered Gezer only in order to recover the property of
himself and his friend Malchiel, partly because a cer-
tain Bin-sumya whom the Pharaoh had sent against
him had really "given a city and property in it to
my father, saying that if the king sends for my wife
I shall withhold her, and if the king sends for myself
I shall give him instead a bar of copper in a large
bowl and take the oath of allegiance." A second
letter is still more uncompromising. In this he com-
plains that the Egyptian troops have ill-treated his
people, and that the officer who is with him has
slandered him before the king; he further declares
that two of his towns have been taken from him, but
that he will defend to the last whatever still remains
of his patrimony.

Malchiel, the colleague of Labai in his attack upon
Gezer, as afterwards upon Ebed-Kheba of Jerusalem,
does not appear to have been of foreign origin. But
as long as the Hittite chief could be of use to him he
was very willing to avail himself of his assistance,
and it was always easy to drop the alliance as soon
as it became embarrassing. Malchiel was the son-
in-law of Tagi of Gath, and the colleague of Su-
yardata, one of the few Canaanite governors whom
the Egyptian government seems to have been able to
trust. Both Su-yardata and Malchiel held commands
in Southern Palestine, and we hear a good deal about
them from Ebed-Kheba. "The two sons of Malchiel "
are also mentioned in a letter from a lady who bears

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 119

a Babylonian name, and who refers to them in con-
nection with an attempt to detach the cities of Ajalon
and Zorah (Josh. xv. 33) from their allegiance to
Egypt. The female correspondents of the Pharaoh
are among the most curious and interesting features
of the state of society depicted in the Tel el-Amarna
tablets; they entered keenly into the politics of the
day, and kept the Egyptian king fully informed of all
that was going on.

The letters of Ebed-Kheba are so important that it
is as well to give them in full. They all seem to have
been written within a few months, or perhaps even
weeks, of one another, when the enemies of the
governor of Jerusalem were gathering around him,
and no response came from Egypt to his requests for
help. The dotted lines mark the words and passages
which have been lost through the fracture of the clay
tablets.

(I.) "To the king my lord [my] Sun-god, thus
[speaks] Ebed-Kheba thy servant : at the feet of the
king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself.
Behold, the king has established his name at the
rising of the sun and the setting of the sun. Slanders
have been uttered against me. Behold, I am not a
governor, a vassal of the king my lord. Behold, I am
an ally of the king, and I have paid the tribute due
to the king, even I. Neither my father nor my mother,
but it was the arm of the Mighty King that estab-
lished [me] in the house of [my] fathers. When . . .
came to me I gave him as a present 10 slaves. Suta
(Seti) the Commissioner of the king has come to me :
21 female slaves and 80 male slaves captured in war
have been given into the hands of Suta as a gift for
the king my lord; let the king therefore care for his

120 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

country. The country of the king is being destroyed,
all of it. Hostilities are carried on against me as far
as the mountains of Seir (Josh. xv. 10) and the city
of Gath-Karmel (Josh. xv. 55). All the other
governors are at peace, but there is war against
myself, since I see the foe, but I do not see the eyes
of the king my lord because war has been raised
against me. When there was a ship in the midst of
the sea, the arm of the Mighty King conquered the
countries of Naharaim (Nakhrima) and Kapasi. But
now the Confederates (Khabiri) are capturing the
fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains
among them to the king my lord ; all have perished.
Behold, Turbazu, thy military officer, [has fallen] in
the great gate of the city of Zelah (Josh, xviii. 28).
Behold, Zimrida of Lachish has been murdered by
the servants who have revolted against the king.
Jephthah-Hadad, thy military officer, has been slain
in the great gate of Zelah. . . . May the king [my
lord] send help [to his country] ! May the king turn
his face to [his subjects] ! May he despatch troops
to [his] country ! [Behold,] if no troops come this
year, all the countries of the king my lord will be
utterly destroyed. They do not say before the face
of the king my lord that the country of the king my
lord is destroyed, and that all the governors are
destroyed, if no troops come this year. Let the king
send a commissioner, and let him come to me, even
to me, with auxiliary troops, and we will die with the
king [our] lord. — [To] the secretary of the king my
lord [speaks] Ebed-Kheba [thy] servant. At [thy]
feet [I prostrate myself.] Let a report of [my] words
be laid before the king [my] lord. Thy servant and
son am I."

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 121

(II.) "To the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-
Kheba thy servant : at the feet of the king my lord
seven times seven I prostrate myself. What have I
done against the king my lord? They have slandered
me, laying wait for me in the presence of the king, the
lord, saying : Ebed-Kheba has revolted from the king
his lord. Behold, neither my father nor my mother
has established me in this place; the arm of the
Mighty King has caused me to enter the house of
my father. Why should I have committed a sin
against the king the lord ? As long as the king my
lord lives, I will say to the officer of the king [my]
lord : Why dost thou love the Confederates and hate
the governors ? And constantly I am sending to the
presence of the king my lord to say that the countries
of the king my lord are being destroyed. Constantly
I am sending to the king my lord, and let the king
my lord consider, since the king my lord has ap-
pointed the men of the garrison which has been

taken by Enkhamu Let the king

send help to his country. [Let him send troops] to
his country which protects the fortresses of the king
my lord, all of them, since Elimelech is destroying
all the country of the king; and let the king send
help to his country. I have said I will go down along
with the king my lord, and I will see the eyes of the
king my lord ; but hostility is strong against me, and
I am therefore not able to go down from (sic) the
king my lord; and let the king incline towards my
face; let him despatch a guard [for me], and let him
appoint a commissioner (?), and I shall not see the
eyes of the king my lord, since the king [my] lord
shall live when the commissioner has departed. Be-
hold, the countries of the king [my lord] are being

122 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

destroyed, yet thou dost not listen to me. All the
goverors are destroyed ; no governor remains to the
king the lord. Let the king turn his face to his
subjects, and let him send auxiliaries, even the troops
of the king my lord. No provinces remain unto the
king; the confederates have wasted all the provinces
of the king. If auxiliaries come this year, the
provinces of the king the lord will be preserved ; but
if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king my
lord are destroyed. — [To] the secretary of the king my
lord Ebed-Kheba [says:] Give a report of my words
to the king my lord : the provinces of the king my
lord are being destroyed by the enemy."

(III.) "[To] the king my lord [speaks] Ebed-Kheba
[thy] servant : [at the feet of the king] my lord seven
[times seven I prostrate myself. Behold, let] the king

[listen to] the words [of his servant] Let

[the king] consider all the districts which are leagued
in hostility against me, and let the king send help to
his country. Behold, the country of the city of Gezer,
the country of the city of Ashkelon and the city of
Lafchish] have given to them ( ? the enemy) food and
oil and whatsoever the fortress needs. And let the
king send help to his troops ; let him despatch troops
against the men who have rebelled against the king
my lord. If troops come this year, there will remain
both provinces [and] governors to the king my lord;
[but] if no troops arrive, there will remain no provinces
or governors to the king [my lord]. Behold, neither
my father nor my mother has given this country of
the city of Jerusalem unto me : it was the arm [of the
Mighty King] that gave it to me, even to me. Behold,
Malchiel and the sons of Labai have given the country
of the king to the Confederates. Behold, the king

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 123

my lord is righteous towards me. As to the Kasians,
let the king ask the commissioner how very strong is
the house. And they have committed a very great
crime. They have taken their stores and ceased work-
ing at the roofs. . . . Let the king demand of them
abundance of food, abundance of oil, and abundance
of clothes until Pa-ur, the commissioner of the king,
comes up to the country of the city of Jerusalem to
deliver Adai along with the garrison and the [rest of
the people]. Let the king know that Adai the officer
appointed by the king has said to me : Lo, let me go
away, but do not you desert the city. Send to me a
garrison [and] send a royal commissioner. Thy grace
[is] to send [them]. To the king [my lord] I have
despatched [a number of] prisoners [and a number

of] slaves The caravans of the king were

robbed in the fields of the city of Ajalon. I am not
able to forward the caravans to the king my lord
according to his instructions. Behold, the king has
established his name in the country of Jerusalem for
ever, and he cannot forsake the territories of the city
of Jerusalem. — To the secretary of the king my lord
thus speaks Ebed-Kheba thy servant. At thy feet
I prostrate myself. Thy servant am I. Lay a report
of my words before the king my lord. The vassal of
the king am I. Mayest thou live long! — A wicked
deed has been committed against me by the men of
the land of Kas. I was within an ace of being slain
by the Kasians in my own house. . . ."

(IV.) "To the king my lord thus [speaks] Ebed-
Kheba thy servant : at the feet of my lord [the king]
seven times seven [I prostrate myself]. Behold Mal-
chiel does not separate himself from the sons of
Labaya [and] the sons of Arzaya to demand the

i24 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

country of the king for themselves. As for a gover-
nor who acts thus, why does the king not question
him ? Behold, Malchiel and Tagi are they who have
acted so, since they have taken the city of Rubute
(Rabbah, Josh. xv. 60), and now (they seek to take)
Jerusalem. If this country is still the king's country
why (is this), when Gaza is a garrison of the king?
Behold the district of Gath-Carmel belongs to Tagi,
and the men of Gath garrison Bit-Sani (Beth-Sannah),
and we shall experience (the same fate) since they
have given Labaya and the land of Shechem to the
men of the district of the Confederates. Malchiel has
sent to Tagi and has given two boy-slaves, all they
wanted, to the men of Keilah. But we will deliver
Jerusalem. The garrison which thou hast despatched
under the command of Khaya the son of Meri-Ra,
Addaya has taken, and he is dwelling in his house
in Gaza, and has sent some men to Egypt. Let the
king know that there is no garrison with me. This
is so, as the king liveth. Pa-ur, his lieutenant, has
run away from me; he is in Gaza. Let the king keep
this in memory before him and send 50 guardsmen
to protect the land. All the country of the king is in
revolt. Send Yikhen-Khamu and let him consider
the country of the king. To the secretary of the king
[my lord] thus says Ebed-Kheba [thy] servant :
Convey a clear report to the king. I am thy ever
obedient servant."

(V.) "[To] the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-
Kheba thy servant : at the feet of the king my lord
seven times seven I prostrate myself. [The king
knows the deed] which they have done, even Malchiel
and Su-ardatum, against the country of the king my
lord, commanding the forces of the city of Gezer, the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 125

forces of the city of Gath, and the forces of the city
of Keilah. They have seized the district of the city
of Rabbah. The country of the king has gone over
to the Confederates. And now at this moment the
city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the
temple of the god Nin-ip is its name, the city of the
king, is gone over to the side of the men of Keilah.
Let the king listen to Ebed-Kheba thy servant, and
let him despatch troops and restore the country of the
king to the king. But if no troops arrive, the country
of the king is gone over to the men even to the
Confederates. This is the deed [of Su-ar]datum and
Malchiel. . . ."

The loyalty of Ebed-Kheba, however, seems to have
been doubted at the Egyptian court, where more con-
fidence was placed in his rival and enemy Su-ardata
(or Su-yardata, as the owner of the name himself
writes it). Possibly the claim of the vassal-king of
Jerusalem to have been appointed to his royal office
by the "Mighty King" rather than by the "great
king " of Egypt, and consequently to be an ally of
the Pharaoh and not an ordinary governor, may have
had something to do with the suspicions that were
entertained of him. At all events we learn from a
letter of Su-yardata that the occupation of Keilah by
Ebed-Kheba's enemies, of which the latter complains
so bitterly, was due to the orders of the Egyptian
government itself. Su-yardata there says — "The king
[my lord] directed me to make war in the city of
Keilah : war was made ; (and now) a complaint is
brought against me. My city against myself has
risen upon me. Ebed-Kheba sends to the men of the
city of Keilah ; he sends silver, and they have marched
against my rear. And the king knows that Ebed-

i26 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Kheba has taken my city from my hand." The writer
adds that " Labaya is dead, but Ebed-Kheba is become
a second Labaya." In his subsequent despatches to
the home government Su-yardata complains that he
is "alone," and asks that troops should be sent to
him, saying that he is forwarding some almehs or
maidens as a present along with his "dragoman."
At this point the correspondence breaks off.

Malchiel and Tagi also write to the Pharaoh.
According to Tagi the roads between Southern
Palestine and Egypt were under the supervision and
protection of his brother ; while Malchiel begs for
cavalry to pursue and capture the enemy who had
made war upon Su-yardata and himself, had seized
"the country of the king," and threatened to slay
his servants. He also complains of the conduct of
Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, who had been
ordered to inquire into the conduct of the governors
in Palestine. Yankhamu, it seems, had seized Mal-
chiel's property and carried off his wives and children.
It was doubtless to this act of injustice that Labai
alludes in his letter of exculpation.

The territory of which Jerusalem was the capital
extended southward as far as Carmel of Judah, Gath-
Carmel as it is called by Ebed-Kheba, as well as in
the geographical lists of Thothmes III., while on the
west it reached to Keilah, Rabbah, and Mount Seir.
No mention is made of Hebron either in the Tel
el-Amarna letters or in the Egyptian geographical
lists, which are earlier than the rise of the nineteenth
dynasty. The town must therefore have existed under
some other name, or have been in the hands of a
power hostile to Egypt.

The name of Hebron has the same origin as that

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 127

of the Khabiri, who appear in Ebed-Kheba's letters
by the side of Labaya, the Kasians, and Naharaim
as the assailants of Jerusalem and its territory. The
word means "Confederates," and occurs in the
Assyrian texts; among other passages in a hymn
published by Dr. B run now, where we read, istu pan
khabiri-ya iptarsanni, "from the face of my associates
he has cut me off." The word, however, is not
Assyrian, as in that case it would have had a different
form, but must have been borrowed from the Canaan-
itish language of the west.

Who the Khabiri or "Confederates" were has
been disputed. Some scholars see in them Elamite
marauders who followed the march of the Babylonian
armies to Syria. This opinion is founded on the fact
that the Khabiri are once mentioned as an Elamite
tribe, and that in a Babylonian document a "Khabi-
rite " (Khabird) is referred to along with a "Kassite"
or Babylonian. Another view is that they are to be
identified with Heber, the grandson of Asher (Gen.
xlvi. 17), since Malchiel is said to be the brother of
Heber, just as in the letters of Ebed-Kheba Malchiel
is associated with the Khabiri. But all such identifica-
tions are based upon the supposition that "Khabiri"
is a proper name rather than a descriptive title. Any
band of "Confederates" could be called Khabiri
whether in Elam or in Palestine, and it does not
follow that the two bands were the same. In the
" Confederates " of Southern Canaan we have to look
for a body of confederated tribes who made them-
selves formidable to the governor of Jerusalem in the
closing days of the Egyptian empire.

It would seem that Elimelech, who of course was
a different person from Malchiel, was their leader,

128 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and as Elimelech is a Canaanitish name, we may
conclude that the majority of his followers were also
of Canaanitish descent. The scene of their hostilities
was to the south of Jerusalem. Gath-Carmel, Zelah,
and Lachish are the towns mentioned in connection
with their attempts to capture and destroy "the fort-
resses of the king." "The country of the king " which
had "gone over to the Confederates " was the territory
over which Ebed-Kheba claimed rule, while the dis-
trict occupied by Labaya and his Hittite followers
was handed over "to the men of the district of the
Confederates." The successes of the latter were
gained through the intrigues of Malchiel and the sons
of Labaya.

All this leads us to the neighbourhood of Hebron,
and suggests the question whether "the district of
the Confederates " was not that of whfch Hebron,
"the Confederacy," was the central meeting-place and
sanctuary. Hebron has preserved its sacred character
down to the present day ; it long disputed with Jeru-
salem the claim of being the oldest and most hallowed
shrine in Southern Palestine, and it was for many
years the capital of Judah. Moreover, we know that
"Hebron" was not the only name the city possessed.
When Abram was "confederate" with the three
Amorite chieftains it was known as Mamre (Gen.
xiii. 1 8), and at a later day under the rule of the
three sons of Anak it was called Kirjath-Arba.

According to the Biblical narrative Hebron was at
once Amorite, Hittite, and Canaanite. Here, there-
fore, there was a confederation of tribes and races
who would have met together at a common sanctuary.
When Ezekiel says that Jerusalem was both Hittite
and Amorite in its parentage, he may have been

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 129

referring to its conquest and settlement by such a
confederacy as that of Hebron. It is possible that
Jerusalem was eventually captured by its enemies, and
that the Jebusites of the Old Testament were the
descendants of the Khabiri of the Tel el-Amarna
letters.' In this case some of the "Confederates" may
have been Hittite bands.

But all this is speculation, which may or may not
prove to be correct. All we can be sure of is that
the Khabiri or "Confederates" had their seat in the
southern part of Palestine, and that we need not go
outside Canaan to discover who they were. Ebed-
Kheba, at all events, carefully distinguishes them
from either the Babylonians or the people of
Xaharaim.

In his letters, as everywhere else in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence, the Babylonians are called
Kassi or Kassites. The name is written differently
in the cuneiform texts from that of the Ethiopians,
the Kash of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Both,
however, are alike represented in Hebrew by Cush,
and hence we have not only a Cush who is the brother
of Mizraim, but also another Cush who is the father of
Ximrod. The name of the latter takes us back to the
age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

Nahrima, or Xaharaim, was the name by which
the kingdom of Mitanni was known to its Canaanite
and Egyptian neighbours. Mitanni, in fact, was its
capital, and it may be that Lutennu (or Lotan), as
the Egyptians called Syria and Palestine, was but a
mispronunciation of it. Along with the Babylonians
the people of Xaharaim had made themselves formid-
able to the inhabitants of Canaan, and their name was
feared as far south as Jerusalem. Even the governor

tjo PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

of the Canaanite town of Musikhuna, not far from the
Sea of Galilee, bore the Mitannian name of Sutarna.
It was not, indeed, until after the Israelitish conquest
that the last invasion of Canaan by a king of Aram-
Naharaim took place.

Gaza and Joppa were at one time under the same
governor, Yabitiri, who in a letter which has come
down to us asks to be relieved of the burden of his
office. Ashkelon, however, which lay between the two
seaports, was in the hands of another prefect, Yidya
by name, from whom we have several letters, in one
of which mention is made of the Egyptian commis-
sioner Rianap, or Ra-nofer. The jurisdiction of
Rianap extended as far north as the plain of Megiddo,
since he is also referred to by Pu-Hadad, the governor
of Yurza, now Yerzeh, south-eastward of Taanach.
But it was more particularly in the extreme south of
Palestine that the duties of this officer lay. Hadad-
dan, who was entrusted with the government of Mana-
hath and Tamar, to the west of the Dead Sea, calls
him "my Commissioner" in a letter in which he
complains of the conduct of a certain Beya, the son
of "the woman Gulat." Hadad-dan begins by saying
that he had protected the commissioner and cities of
the king, and then adds that "the city of Tumur is
hostile to me, and I have built a house in the city
of Mankhate, so that the household troops of the king
my lord may be sent to me ; and lo, Baya has taken
it from my hand, and has placed his commissioner in
it, and I have appealed to Rianap, my commissioner,
and he has restored the city unto me, and has sent the
household troops of the king my lord to me." After
this the writer goes on to state that Beya had also
intrigued against the city of Gezer, "the handmaid of

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 131

the king my lord who created me." The rebel then
carried off a quantity of plunder, and it became neces-
sary to ransom his prisoners for a hundred pieces of
silver, while those of his confederate were ransomed
for thirty pieces of silver.

The misdeeds of Beya or Baya did not end here.
We hear of him again as attacking and capturing a
body of soldiers who had been sent to defend the
royal palace at Joppa, and as occupying that city
itself. He was, however, subsequently expelled from
it by the king's orders. Beya, too, professed to be
an Egyptian governor and a faithful servant of the
Pharaoh, to whom he despatched a letter to say that
Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, was not in his
district. Probably this was in answer to a charge
brought against him by the Egyptian officer.

The official duties of Yankhamu extended over the
whole of Palestine, and all the governors of its cities
were accountable to him. We find him exercising
his authority not only in the south, but also in the
north, at Zemar and Gebal, and even among the
Amorites. Amon-apt, to whom the superintendence
of Phoenicia was more particularly entrusted, was
supplied by him with corn, and frequent references are
made to him in the letters of Rib-Hadad. Malchiel
complained of his high-handed proceedings, and the
complaint seems to have led to some confidential
inquiries on the part of the home government, since
we find a certain Sibti-Hadad writing in answer to
the Pharaoh's questions that Yankhamu was a faithful
servant of the king.

The country east of the Jordan also appears to have
been within his jurisdiction. At all events the follow-
ing letter was addressed to him by the governor Mut-
1 2

i32 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Hadad, "the man of Hadad." "To Yankhamu my
lord thus speaks Mut-Hadad thy servant : at the feet
of my lord I prostrate myself. Since Mut-Hadad has
declared in thy presence that Ayab has fled, and it
is certified (?) that the king of Bethel has fled from
before the officers of the king his lord, may the king
my lord live, may the king my lord live ! I pray
thee ask Ben-enima, ask Tadua, ask Yasuya, if Ayab
has been in this city of Bethel for [the last] two
months. Ever since the arrival ( ?) of Sulma-Mero-
dach, the city of Astarti (Ashtaroth-Karnaim) has been
assisted, because all the fortresses of the foreign land
are hostile, namely, the cities of Udumu (Edom),
Aduri (Addar), Araru, Mestu (Mosheh), Magdalim
(Migdol), Khinianabi ('En han-nabi), Zarki ; taken
are Khaini ('En) and Ibilimma (Abel). Again after
thou hadst sent a letter to me I sent to him (i. e. Ayab),
[to wait] until thy arrival from thy journey ; and he
reached the city of Bethel and [there] they heard the
news."

We learn from this letter that Edom was a "foreign
country " unsubdued by the Egyptian arms. The
"city of Edom," from which the country took its name,
is again mentioned in the inscriptions of the Assyrian
king Esar-haddon, and it was there that the Assyrian
tax-gatherers collected the tribute of the Edomite
nation. It would seem that the land of Edom
stretched further to the north in the age of Khu-n-
Aten than it did at a subsequent period of history,
and that it encroached upon what was afterwards the
territory of Moab. The name of the latter country
is met with for the first time among the Asiatic
conquests of Ramses II. engraved on the base of
one of the colossal figures which stand in front of

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 133

the northern pylon of the temple of Luxor; when
the Tel el-Amarna letters were written Moab was
included in the Canaanite province of Egypt.

A curious letter to Khu-n-Aten from Burna-buryas,
the Babylonian king, throws a good deal of light
on the nature of the Egyptian government in Canaan.
Between the predecessors of the two monarchs there
had been alliance and friendly intercourse, and never-
theless the Canaanitish subjects of the Pharaoh had
committed an outrageous crime against some Baby-
lonian merchants, which if left unpunished would
have led to a rupture between the two countries. The
merchants in question had entered Palestine under
the escort of the Canaanite Ahitub, intending after-
wards to visit Egypt. At fin-athon, near Acre, how-
ever, "in the country of Canaan," Sum-Adda, or
Shem-Hadad, the son of Balumme (Balaam), and
Sutatna, or Zid-athon, the son of Saratum,1 who was
governor of Acre, set upon them, killing some of
them, maltreating others, and carrying away their
goods. Burna-buryas therefore sent a special envoy,
who was instructed to lay the following complaint
before the Pharaoh : "Canaan is thy country and the
king [of Acre is thy servant]. In thy country I have
been injured ; do thou punish [the offenders]. The
silver which they carried off was a present [for thee],
and the men who are my servants they have slain.
Slay them and requite the blood [of my servants].
But if thou dost not put these men to death, [the
inhabitants] of the high-road that belongs to me will
turn and verily will slay thy ambassadors, and a
breach will be made in the agreement to respect the

1 His name is written Zurata in the letter of Biridi, the governor
of Megiddo ; see above, p. 117.

i34 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

persons of ambassadors, and I shall be estranged
from thee. Shem-Hadad, having cut off the feet of
one of my men, has detained him with him ; and as
for another man, Sutatna of Acre made him stand
upon his head and then stood upon his face."

There are three letters in the Tel el-Amarna col-
lection from Sutatna, or Zid-atna ("the god Zid has
given ") as he writes his name, in one of which he
compares Akku or Acre with "the city of Migdol in
Egypt." Doubtless satisfaction was given to the
Babylonian king for the wrong that had been done
to his subjects, though whether the actual culprits
were punished may be questioned. There is another
letter from Burna-buryas, in which reference is again
made to the Canaanites. He there asserts that in
the time of his father, Kuri-galzu, they had sent to
the Babylonian sovereign, saying: "Let us go down
to the frontier and rebel." Kuri-galzu, however, had
refused to listen to them, telling them that if they
wanted to break away from the Egyptian king and ally
themselves "with another," they must find some one
else to assist them. Burna-buryas goes on to declare
that he was like-minded with his father, and had
accordingly despatched an Assyrian vassal to assure
the Pharaoh that he would carry on no intrigues with
disaffected Canaanites. As the first part of his letter
is filled with requests for gold for the adornment of a
temple he was building at Babylon, such an assurance
was very necessary. The despatches of Rib-Hadad
and Ebed-Kheba, however, go to show that in spite
of his professions of friendship, the Babylonian
monarch was ready to afford secret help to the insur-
gents in Palestine. The Babylonians were not likely
to forget that they had once been masters of the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 135

country, or to regard the Egyptian empire in Asia
with other than jealous eyes.

The Tel el-Amarna correspondence breaks off
suddenly in the midst of a falling empire, with its
governors in Canaan fighting and intriguing one
against the other, and appealing to the Pharaoh for
help that never came. The Egyptian commissioners
are vainly endeavouring to restore peace and order,
like General Gordon in the Soudan, while Baby-
lonians and Mitannians, Hittites and Beduin are
assailing the distracted province. The Asiatic empire
of the eighteenth dynasty, however, did not wholly
perish with the death of Khu-n-Aten. A picture in
the tomb of prince Hui at Thebes shows that under
the reign of his successor, Tut-ankh-Amon, the
Egyptian supremacy was still acknowledged in some
parts of Syria. The chiefs of the Lotan or Syrians
are represented in their robes of many colours, some
with white and others with brown skins, and coming
before the Egyptian monarch with the rich tribute of
their country. Golden trays full of precious stones,
vases of gold and silver, the covers of which are in
the form of the heads of gazelles and other animals,
golden rings richly enamelled, horses, lions, and a
leopard's skin — such are the gifts which they offer to
the Pharaoh. It was the last embassy of the kind
which was destined to come from Syria for many a
day.

With the rise of the nineteenth dynasty and the
restoration of a strong government at home, the
Egyptians once more began to turn their eyes towards
Palestine. Seti I. drove the Beduin before him from
the frontiers of Egypt to those of "Canaan," and
established a line of fortresses and wells along "the

136 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

way of the Philistines," which ran by the shore of
the Mediterranean to Gaza. The road was now open
for him to the north along the sea-coast. We hear
accordingly of his capture of Acre, Tyre, and Usu
or Palaetyros, from whence he marched into the
Lebanon and took Kumidi and Inu'am. One of his
campaigns must have led him into the interior of
Palestine, since in his list of conquered cities we find
the names of Carmel and Beth-anoth, of Beth-el and
Pahil or Pella, as well as of Oamham or Chimham (see
Jer. xli. 17). Kadesh, "in the land of the Amorites,"
was captured by a sudden assault, and Seti claims to
have defeated or received the submission of Alasiya
and Naharaim, the Hittites and the Assyrians, Cyprus
and Sangar. It would seem, however, that north of
Kadesh he really made his way only along the coast
as far as the Gulf of Antioch and Cilicia, overrunning
towns and districts of which we know little more than
the names.

Seti was succeeded by his son Ramses II., the
Pharaoh of the Oppression and the builder of Pithom
and Ramses. His long reign of sixty-seven years
lasted from 1348 B.C. to 1281 B.C. The first twenty-
one years of it were occupied in the re-conquest of
Palestine, and sanguinary wars with the Hittites. But
these mountaineers of the north had established them-
selves too firmly in the old Egyptian province of
Northern Syria to be dislodged. All the Pharaoh
could effect was to stop their further progress towards
the south and to save Canaan from their grasp. The
war between the two great powers of Western Asia
ended at last through the sheer exhaustion of the rival
combatants. A treaty of alliance, offensive and
defensive, was drawn up between Ramses II. and

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 137

Khatu-sil, "the great king of the Hittites," and it
was cemented by the marriage of the Pharaoh to the
daughter of the Hittite prince. Syria was divided
between the Hittites and Egyptians, and it was agreed
that neither should under any pretext invade the
territories of the other. It was also agreed that if
either country was attacked by foreign foes or
rebellious subjects, the other should come to its help.
Political refugees, moreover, were to be delivered up
to the sovereign from whom they had escaped, but
it was stipulated that in this case they should receive
a full pardon for the offences they had committed.
The Hittite copy of the treaty was engraved on a
silver plate, and the gods of Egypt and the Hittites
were called upon to witness the execution of it.

The legendary exploits of Sesostris, that creation
of Greek fancy and ignorance, were fastened upon
Ramses II., whose long reign, inordinate vanity, and
ceaseless activity as a builder made him one of the
most prominent of the old Pharaohs. It was natural,
therefore, at the beginning of hieroglyphic decipher-
ment that the Greek accounts should be accepted in
full, and that Ramses II. should have been regarded
as the greatest of Egyptian conquerors. But further
study soon showed that, in this respect at least, his
reputation had little to support it. Like his monu-
ments, too many of which are really stolen from his
predecessors, or else sacrifice honesty of work to haste
and pretentiousness, a large part of the conquests and
victories that have been claimed for him was due to
the imagination of the scribes. In the reaction which
followed on this discovery, the modern historians of
ancient Egypt were disposed to dispute his claim to
be a conqueror at all. But we now know that such a

138 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

scepticism was exaggerated, and though Ramses II.
was not a conqueror like Thothmes III., he never-
theless maintained and extended the Asiatic empire
which his father had recovered, and the lists of van-
quished cities which he engraved on the walls of his
temples were not mere repetitions of older catalogues,
or the empty fictions of flattering chroniclers. Egyptian
armies really marched once more into Northern Syria
and the confines of Cilicia, and probably made their
way to the banks of the Euphrates. We have no
reason for denying that Assyrian troops may have
been defeated by his arms, or that the king of Mitanni
may have sent an embassy to his court. And we now
have a good deal more than the indirect evidence of
the treaty with the Hittites to show that Canaan was
again a province of the Egyptian empire. The names
of some of its cities which were captured in the early
part of the Pharaoh's reign may still be read on the
walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes. Among them are
Ashkelon, Shalam or Jerusalem, Merom and Beth-
Anath, which were taken by storm in his eighth
year. Dapul, "in the land of the Amorites," was
captured at the same time, proving that the Egyptian
forces penetrated as far as the Hittite frontiers. At
Luxor other Canaanite names figure in the catalogue
of vanquished states. Thus we have Carmel of Judah,
Ir-shemesh and Hadashah (Josh. xv. 37), Gaza, Sela
and Jacob-el, Socho, Yurza, and Korkha in Moab.
The name of Moab itself appears for the first time
among the subject nations, while we gather from a
list of mining settlements that Cyprus as well as the
Sinaitic peninsula was under Egyptian authority.

A sarcastic account of the misadventures of a
military officer in Palestine, which was written jn

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 139

the time of Ramses, is an evidence of the complete
occupation of that country by the Egyptians. All
parts of Canaan are alluded to in it, and as Dr. Max
Miiller has lately pointed out, we find in it for the
first time the names of Shechem and Kirjath-Sepher.
Similar testimony is borne by a hieroglyphic inscrip-
tion recently discovered by Dr. Schumacher on the
so-called "Stone of Job " in the Hauran. The stone
(Sakhrat 'Ayyub) is a monolith westward of the Sea
of Galilee, and not far from Tel 'Ashtereh, the ancient
Ashtaroth-Karnaim, which was a seat of Egyptian
government in the time of Khu-n-Aten. The monolith
is adorned with Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs.
One of the sculptures represents a Pharaoh above
whose likeness is the cartouche of Ramses II., while
opposite the king, to the left, is the figure of a god
who wears the crown of Osiris, but has a full face.
Over the god is his name in hieroglyphics. The
name, however, is not Egyptian, but seems to be
intended for the Canaanite Yakin-Zephon or "Yakin
of the North." It is plain, therefore, that we have
here a monument testifying to the rule of Ramses II.,
but a monument which was erected by natives of
the country to a native divinity. For a while the
hieroglyphic writing of Egypt had taken the place
formerly occupied by the cuneiform syllabary of
Babylonia, and Egyptian culture had succeeded in
supplanting that which had come from the East.

The nineteenth dynasty ended even more dis-
astrously than the eighteenth. It is true that the
great confederacy of northern and Libyan tribes
which attacked Egypt by sea and land in the reign
of Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II.,
was successfully repulsed, but the energy of the

i4o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Egyptian power seemed to exhaust itself in the effort.
The throne fell into the hands of usurpers, and the
house of Ramses was swept away by civil war and
anarchy. The government was seized by a Syrian,
Arisu by name, and for a time Egypt was compelled
to submit to a foreign yoke. The overthrow of the
foreigner and the restoration of the native monarchy
was due to the valour of Set-nekht, the founder of the
twentieth dynasty and the father of Ramses III.

It was under one of the immediate successors of
Ramses II. that the exodus of the Israelites out of
Egypt must have taken place. Egyptian tradition
pointed to Meneptah ; modern scholars are inclined
to be of the same opinion. With this event the
patriarchal history of Canaan ought properly to come
to an end. But the Egyptian monuments still cast
light upon it, and enable us to carry it on almost to
the moment when Joshua and his followers entered
the Promised Land.

Palestine still formed part of the kingdom of
Meneptah, at all events in the earlier years of his
reign. A scribe has left us a record of the officials
who passed to and from Canaan through the frontier
fortress of Zaru during the middle of the month
Pakhons in the third year of the king. One of these
was Loy or Levi, the son of Zippor of Gaza, who
carried a letter for the Egyptian captain of the Syrian
or Egyptian infantry, as well as another for Baalat-
romgu, the vassal-prince of Tyre. Another messenger
was Sutekh-mes, the son of 'Aper-dagal, who also
carried a despatch to the captain of the infantry, while
a third envoy came in the reverse direction, from the
city of Meneptah, "in the land of the Amorites."

In the troubles which preceded the accession of the

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN 141

twentieth dynasty the Asiatic possessions of Egypt
were naturally lost, and were never again recovered.
Ramses III., however, the last of the conquering
Pharaohs, made at least one campaign in Palestine
and Syria. Like Meneptah, he had to bear the brunt
of an attack upon Egypt by the confederated hordes
of the north which threatened to extinguish its civiliza-
tion altogether. The nations of Asia Minor and the
Aigean Sea had poured into Syria as the Northern
barbarians in later days poured into the provinces of
the Roman Empire. Partly by land, partly by sea,
they made their way through Phoenicia and the land
of the Hittites, destroying everything as they went,
and carrying in their train the subjugated princes of
Xaharaim and Kadesh. For a time they encamped
in the "land of the Amorites," and then pursued their
southward march. Ramses III. met them on the
north-eastern frontier of his kingdom, and in a fiercely
contested battle utterly overthrew them. The ships
of the invaders were captured or sunk, and their forces
on land were decimated. Immense quantities of booty
and prisoners were taken, and the shattered forces of
the enemy retreated into Syria. There the Philistines
and Zakkal possessed themselves of the sea-coast, and
garrisoned the cities of the extreme south. Gaza
ceased to be an Egyptian fortress, and became instead
an effectual barrier to the Egyptian occupation of
Canaan.

When Ramses III. followed the retreating invaders
of his country into Syria, it is doubtful whether the
Philistines had as yet settled themselves in their future
home. At all events Gaza fell into his hands, and he
found no difficulty in marching along the Mediter-
ranean coast like the conquering Pharaohs who had

142 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

preceded him. In his temple palace at Medinet Habu
he has left a record of the conquests that he made in
Syria. The great cities of the coast were untouched.
No attempt was made to besiege or capture Tyre and
Sidon, Beyrout and Gebal, and the Egyptian army
marched past them, encamping on the way only at
such places as "the headland of Carmel," "the source
of the Magoras," or river of Beyrout, and the Bor
or "Cistern." Otherwise its resting-places were at
unknown villages like Inzath and Lui-el. North of
Beyrout it struck eastward through the gorge of the
Nahr el-Kelb, and took the city of Kumidi. Then it
made its way by Shenir or Hermon to Hamath, which
surrendered, and from thence still northward to "the
plain " of Aleppo.

In the south of Palestine, in what was afterwards
the territory of Judah, Ramses made yet another cam-
paign. Here he claims to have taken Lebanoth and
Beth-Anath, Carmel of Judah and Shebtin, Jacob-el
and Hebron, Libnah and Aphek, Migdal-gad and
Ir-Shemesh, Hadashah and the district of Salem or
Jerusalem. From thence the Egyptian forces pro-
ceeded to the Lake of Reshpon or the Dead Sea,
and then crossing the Jordan seized Korkha in Moab.
But the campaign was little more than a raid; it
left no permanent results behind it, and all traces of
Egyptian authority disappeared with the departure of
the Pharaoh's army. Canaan remained the prey of the
first resolute invader who had strength and courage
at his back.

CHAPTER IV

THE PATRIARCHS

Abraham had been born in "Ur of the Chaldees."
Ur lay on the western side of the Euphrates in
Southern Babylonia, where the mounds of Muqayyar
or Mugheir mark the site of the great temple that
had been reared to the worship of the Moon-god
long before the days of the Hebrew patriarch. Here
Abraham had married, and from hence he had gone
forth with his father to seek a new home in the
west. Their first resting-place had been Harran in
Mesopotamia, on the high-road to Syria and the
Mediterranean. The name of Harran, in fact, signi-
fied "road " in the old language of Chaldaea, and for
many ages the armies and merchants of Babylonia
had halted there when making their way towards
the Mediterranean. Like Ur, it was dedicated to the
worship of Sin, the Moon-god, and its temple rivalled
in fame and antiquity that of the Babylonian city,
and had probably been founded by a Babylonian
king.

At Harran, therefore, Abraham would still have
been within the limits of Babylonian influence and
culture, if not of Babylonian government as well.
He would have found there the same religion as that
which he had left behind him in his native city; the
same deity was adored there, under the same name
143

144 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and with the same rites. He was indeed on the
road to Canaan, and among an Aramaean rather than
a Babylonian population, but Babylonia with its
beliefs and civilization had not as yet been forsaken.
Even the language of Babylonia was known in his
new home, as is indicated by the name of the city
itself.

Harran and Mesopotamia were not the goal of
the future father of the Israelitish people. He was
bidden to seek elsewhere another country and another
kindred. Canaan was the land which God promised
to "show" to him, and it was in Canaan that his
descendants were to become "a great nation." He
went forth, accordingly, "to go into the land of
Canaan, and into the land of Canaan he came."

But even in Canaan Abraham was not beyond the
reach of Babylonian influence. As we have seen in
the last chapter, Babylonian armies had already pene-
trated to the shores of the Mediterranean, Palestine
had been included within the bounds of a Babylonian
empire, and Babylonian culture and religion had
spread widely among the Canaanitish tribes. The
cuneiform system of writing had made its way to
Syria, and Babylonian literature had followed in its
wake. Centuries had already passed since Sargon of
Akkad had made himself master of the Mediterranean
coast and his son Naram-Sin had led his forces to the
Peninsula of Sinai. Istar of Babylonia had become
Ashtoreth of the Canaanites, and Babylonian trade
had long moved briskly along the very road that
Abraham traversed. In the days of the patriarch
himself the rulers of Babylonia claimed to be also
rulers of Canaan ; for thirteen years did the Canaanite
princes "serve" Chedor-laomer and his allies, the

THE PATRIARCHS 145

father of Arioch is also "the father of the land of
the Amorites " in his son's inscriptions, and at a
little later date the King of Babylon still claimed
sovereignty over the west.

It was not, therefore, to a strange and unexplored
country that Abraham had migrated. The laws and
manners to which he had been accustomed, the writing
and literature which he had learned in the schools
of Ur, the religious beliefs among which he had lived
in Chaldsea and Harran, he found again in Canaan.
The land of his adoption was full of Babylonian
traders, soldiers, and probably officials as well, and
from time to time he must have heard around him
the language of his birthplace. The introduction
into the west of the Babylonian literature and script
brought with it a knowledge of the Babylonian
language, and the knowledge is reflected in some of
the local names of Palestine. The patriarch had not
escaped beyond the control even of the Babylonian
government. At times, at all events, the princes of
Canaan were compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty
of Chaldaea and obey the laws, as the Babylonians
would have said, of "Anu and Dagon."

The fact needs dwelling upon, partly because of
its importance, partly because it is but recently that
we have begun to realize it. It might indeed have
been gathered from the narratives of Genesis, more
especially from the account of Chedor-laomer's cam-
paign, but it ran counter to the preconceived ideas
of the modern historian, and never therefore took
definite shape in his mind. It is one of the many
gains that the decipherment of the cuneiform inscrip-
tions has brought to the student of the Old Testament,
and it makes us understand the story of Abraham's

146 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

migration in a way that was never possible before.
He was no wild nomad wandering in unknown
regions, among a people of alien habits and foreign
civilization. We know now why he took the road
which we are told he followed; wily he was able to
make allies among the inhabitants of Canaan ; why
he understood their language and could take part in
their social life. Like the Englishman who migrates
to a British colony, Abraham was in contact with the
same culture in Canaan and Chaldasa alike.

But when he reached Canaan he was not yet
Abraham. He was still "Abram the Hebrew," and
it was as "Abram the Hebrew " that he made alliance
with the Amorites of Mamre and overthrew the retreat-
ing forces of the Babylonian kings. Abram is a name
of the Amorites, settled in Babylonia, and is found in
contracts of the age of Chedor-laomer. When the
name was changed to Abraham, it was a sign that
the Babylonian emigrant had become a native of the
west.

It was under the terebinth of Moreh before Shechem
that Abraham first pitched his tent and erected his
first altar to the Lord. Above him towered Ebal and
Gerizim, where the curses and blessings of the Law
were afterwards to be pronounced. From thence he
moved southward to one of the hills westward of
Beth-el, the modern Beitin, and there his second altar
was built. While the first had been reared in the
plain, the second was raised on the mountain-slope.

But here, too, he did not remain long. Again he
"journeyed, going on still towards the south." Then
came a famine which obliged him to cross the frontier
of Egypt, and visit the court of the Pharaoh. The
Hyksos, kinsmen of the race to which he belonged,

THE PATRIARCHS 147

were ruling in the delta, and a ready welcome was
given to the Asiatic stranger. He was "very rich in
cattle, in silver and in gold," and, like a wealthy Arab
sheikh to-day, was received with due honour in the
Egyptian capital. The court of the Pharaoh was
doubtless at Zoan.

Among the possessions of the patriarch we are told
were camels. The camel is not included among the
Egyptian hieroglyphs, nor has it been found depicted
on the walls of the Egyptian temples and tombs.
The name is first met with in a papyrus of the time
of the nineteenth dynasty, and is one of the many
words which the Egyptians of that age borrowed from
their Canaanitish neighbours. The animal, in fact,
was not used by the Egyptians, and its domestication
in the valley of the Nile seems to be as recent as the
Arab conquest. But though it was not used by the
Egyptians, it had been a beast of burden among
the Semites of Arabia from an early period. In the
primitive Sumerian language of Chaldaea it was called
""the animal from the Persian Gulf," and its Semitic
name, from which our own word camel is derived,
goes back to the very beginnings of Semitic history.
We cannot, therefore, imagine a Semitic nomad
arriving in Egypt without the camel; travellers,
indeed, from the cities of Canaan might do so, but
not those who led a purely nomadic life. And, in
fact, though we look in vain for a picture of the
camel among the sculptures and paintings of Egypt,
the bones of the animal have been discovered deep
in the alluvial soil of the valley of the Nile.

Abraham had to quit Egypt, and once more he
traversed the desert of the "South" and pitched his
tent near Beth-el. Here his nephew Lot left him, and,
k 2

i48 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

dissatisfied with the life of a wandering Bedawi, took
up his abode in the city of Sodom at the northern
end of the Dead Sea. While Abraham kept himself
separate from the natives of Canaan, Lot thus became
one of them, and narrowly escaped the doom which
afterwards fell upon the cities of the plain. In for-
saking the tent, he forsook not only the free life of the
immigrant from Chalda;a, but the God of Abraham as
well. The inhabitant of a Canaanitish city passed
under the influence of its faith and worship, its morals
and manners, as well as its laws and government.
He ceased to be an alien and stranger, of a different
race and fatherland, and with a religion and customs
of his own. He could intermarry with the natives of
his adopted country and participate in their sacred
rites. Little by little his family became merged in
the population that surrounded him ; its gods became
their gods, its morality — or, it may be, its immorality
— became theirs also. Lot, indeed, had eventually to
fly from Sodom, leaving behind him all his wealth ;
but the mischief had already been done, and his
children had become Canaanites in thought and deed.
The nations which sprang from hirn, though separate
in race from the older people of Canaan, were yet
like them in other respects. They formed no "peculiar
people," to whom the Lord might reveal Himself
through the law and the prophets.

It was not until Lot had separated himself from
Abraham that the land of Canaan was promised to
the descendants of the patriarch. "Lift up now thine
eyes," God said to him, "and look from the place
where thou art, northward and southward, and east-
ward and westward : for all the land which thou seest,
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever." Once

THE PATRIARCHS 149

more, therefore, Abraham departed southward from
Shechem ; not this time to go into the land of Egypt,
but to dwell beside the terebinth-oak of Mamre hard
by Hebron, where the founder of the Davidic
monarchy was hereafter to be crowned king. It is
probable that the sanctuary which in days to come
was to make Hebron famous had not as yet been
established there; at all events the name of Hebron,
"the confederacy," was not as yet known, and the city
was called Kirjath-Arba. Whether it was also called
Mamre is doubtful ; Mamre would rather seem to have
been the name of the plateau which stretched beyond
the valley of Hebron and was occupied by the Amorite
confederates of the Hebrew patriarch.

It was while he "dwelt under the terebinth of
Mamre the Amorite " that the campaign of Chedor-
laomer and his Babylonian allies took place, and that
Lot was carried away among the Canaanitish cap-
tives. But the triumph of the conquerors was short-
lived. "Abram the Hebrew" pursued them with his
armed followers, three hundred and eighteen in
number, as well as with his Amorite allies, and sud-
denly falling upon their rear-guard near Damascus
by night, rescued the captives and the spoil. There
was rejoicing in the Canaanitish cities when the
patriarch returned with his booty. The new king of
Sodom met him in the valley of Shaven, "the king's
dale " of later times, just outside the walls of Jeru-
salem, and the king of Jerusalem himself, Melchi-
zedek, "the priest of the most High God," welcomed
the return of the victor with bread and wine. Then
it was that Abram restored the spoil he had captured
from the foe, while Melchizedek blessed him in the
name of "the most High God."

150 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Outside the pages of the Old Testament the special
form assumed by the blessing has been found only
in the Aramaic inscriptions of Egypt. Here, too, we
find travellers from Palestine writing of themselves
"Blessed be Augah of Isis," or "Blessed be Abed-
Nebo of Khnum " ! It would seem, therefore, to have
been a formula peculiar to Canaan ; at all events, it
has not been traced to other parts of the Semitic
world. The temple of the Most High God— El Elyon
— probably stood on Mount Moriah where the temple
of the God of Israel was afterwards to be erected. It
will be remembered that among the letters sent by
Ebed-Kheba, the king of Jerusalem, to the Egyptian
Pharaoh is one in which he speaks of "the city of
the Mountain of Jerusalem, whose name is the city of
the temple of the god Nin-ip." In this "Mountain
of Jerusalem" it is difficult not to see the "temple-
mount " of later days.

In the cuneiform texts of Ebed-Kheba and the
later Assyrian kings the name of Jerusalem is written
Uru-Salim, "the city of Salim." Salim, "Salvation,"
is almost certainly the native name of the god who
was identified with the Babylonian Nin-ip, and per-
haps Isaiah — that student of the older history of his
country — is alluding to the fact when he declares that
one of the titles of the Messiah shall be "the Prince
of Peace." At any rate, if the Most High God of
Jerusalem were really Salim, the God of Salvation,
we should have an explanation of the blessing pro-
nounced by Melchizedek upon the patriarch. Abram's
victory had brought salvation to Canaan ; he had
recovered the captives, and had himself returned in
peace. It was fitting, therefore, that he should be
welcomed by the priest of the God of Salvation, and

THE PATRIARCHS 151

that tithes should be offered of the booty he had
recovered to the god of "the City of Salim."

This offering of tithes was no new thing. In his
Babylonian home Abraham must have been familiar
with the practice. The cuneiform inscriptions of
Babylonia contain frequent references to it. It went
back to the pre-Semitic age of Chaldaea, and the great
temples of Babylonia were largely supported by the
esrd or tithe which was levied upon prince and peasant
alike. That the god should receive a tenth of the
good things which, it was believed, he had bestowed
upon mankind, was not considered to be asking too
much. There are many tablets in the British Museum
which are receipts for the payment of the tithe to the
great temple of the Sun-god at Sippara in the time
of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. From one of
them we learn that Belshazzar, even at the very
moment when the Babylonian empire was falling
from his father's hands, nevertheless found an oppor-
tunity for paying the tithe due from his sister; while
others show us that Cyrus and Cambyses did not
regard their foreign origin as affording any pretext
for refusing to pay tithe to the gods of the kingdom
they had overthrown.

The Babylonian army had been defeated near
Damascus, and immediately after this we are told
that the steward of Abraham's house was "Eli-ezer
of Damascus." Whether there is any connection
between the two facts we cannot say ; but it may
be that Eli-ezer had attached himself to the Hebrew
conqueror when he was returning "from the slaughter
of Chedor-laomer." The name of Eli-ezer, "God is
a help," is characteristic of Damascus. More often
in place of El, "God," we have Hadad, the supreme

^52

PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

deity of Syria; but just as among the Israelites
Eli-akim and Jeho-iakim are equivalent, so among the
Aramaeans of Syria were Eli-ezer and Hadad-ezer.
Hadad-ezer, it will be remembered, was the king of
Zobah who was overthrown by David.

Sarai, the wife of Abraham, was still childless, but
the patriarch had a son by his Egyptian handmaid,
the ancestor of the Ishmaelite tribes who spread from
the frontier of Egypt to Mecca, in Central Arabia.
It was when Ishmael was thirteen years of age that
the covenant was made between God and Abraham
which was sealed with the institution of circumcision.
Circumcision had been practised in Egypt from the
earliest days of its history ; henceforth it also distin-
guished all those who claimed Abraham as their fore-
father. With circumcision Abraham . received the
name by which he was henceforth to be known ; he
ceased to be Abram, the Hebrew from Babylonia,
and became Abraham the father of Ishmael and Israel.
The new rite and the new name were alike the seal
and token of the covenant established between the
patriarch and his God; God promised that his seed
should multiply, and that the land of Canaan should
be given as an everlasting possession, while Abraham
and his offspring were called upon to keep God's
covenant for ever.

It could not have been long after this that the
cities of the plain were destroyed "with brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven." The expres-
sion is found in the cuneiform tablets of Babylonia.
Old Sumerian hymns spoke of a "rain of stones and
fire," though the stones may have been hailstones
and thunderbolts, and the fire the flash of the light-
ning. But whatever may have been the nature of the

THE PATRIARCHS 153

sheet of flame which enveloped the guilty cities of the
plain and set on fire the naphtha-springs that oozed
out of it, the remembrance of the catastrophe survived
to distant ages. The prophets of Israel and Judah
still refer to the overthrow of Sodom and its sister
cities, and St. Jude points to them as "suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire." Some scholars have seen
an allusion to their overthrow in the tradition of the
Phoenicians which brought their ancestors into the
coastlands of Canaan in consequence of an earth-
quake on the shores of "the Assyrian Lake." But
the lake is more probably to be looked for in the
neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf than in the valley
of the Jordan.

The vale of Siddim, and "the cities of the plain,"
stood at the northern end of the Dead Sea. Here
were the "slime-pits" from which the naphtha was
extracted, and which caused the defeat of the Canaan-
itish princes by the Babylonian army. The legend
which placed the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife
was changed at the southern extremity of the Dead
Sea was of late origin, probably not earlier than the
days when Herod built his fortress of Machasrus on
the impregnable cliffs of Moab, and the name of Gebel
Usdum, given by the modern Arabs to one of the
mountain-summits to the south of the sea proves
nothing as to the site of the city of Sodom. Names
in the east are readily transferred from one locality
to another, and a mountain is not the same as a city
in a plain.

There are two sufficient reasons why it is to the
north rather than to the south that we must look for
the remains of the doomed cities, among the numerous
tumuli which rise above the rich and fertile plain in

154 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

the neighbourhood of Jericho, where the ancient
"slime-pits" can still be traced. Geology has taught
us that throughout the historical period the Dead Sea
and the country immediately to the south of it have
undergone no change. What the lake is to-day, it
must have been in the days of Abraham. It has
neither grown nor shrunk in size, and the barren salt
with which it poisons the ground must have equally
poisoned it then. No fertile valley, like the vale of
Siddim, could have existed in the south ; no prosper-
ous Canaanitish cities could have grown up among the
desolate tracts of the southern wilderness. As we are
expressly told in the Book of Numbers (xiii. 29), the
Canaanites dwelt only "by the coast of Jordan," not
in the desert far beyond the reach of the fertilizing
stream.

But there is another reason which excludes the
southern site. "When Abraham got up early in the
morning," we are told, "he looked towards Sodom and
Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and
beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as
the smoke of a furnace." Such a sight was possible
from the hills of Hebron ; if the country lay at the
northern end of the Dead Sea, it would have been
impossible had it been south of it.

Moreover, the northern situation of the cities alone
agrees with the geography of Genesis. When the
Babylonian invaders had turned northwards after
smiting the Amalekites of the desert south of the
Dead Sea, they did not fall in with the forces of the
king of Sodom and his allies until they had first
passed "the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar."
Hazezon-tamar, as we learn from the Second Book of
Chronicles (xx. 2), was the later En-gedi, "the Spring

THE PATRIARCHS 155

of the Kid," and En-gedi lay on the western shore of
the Dead Sea midway between its northern and south-
ern extremities.

In the warm, soft valley of the Jordan, accordingly,
where a sub-tropical vegetation springs luxuriantly
out of the fertile ground and the river plunges into
the Dead Sea as into a tomb, the nations of Ammon
and Moab were born. It was a fitting spot, in close
proximity as it was to the countries which thereafter
bore their names. From the mountain above Zoar,
Lot could look across to the blue hills of Moab and
the distant plateau of Ammon.

Meanwhile Abraham had quitted Mam re and again
turned his steps towards the south. This time it was
at Gerar, between the sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea and
Shur the "wall " of Egypt that he sojourned. Kadesh
has been found again in our own days by the united
efforts of Dr. John Rowlands and Dr. Clay Trumbull
in the shelter of a block of mountains which rise to
the south of the desert of Beer-sheba. The spring of
clear and abundant water which gushes forth in their
midst was the En-Mishpat — "the spring where judg-
ments were pronounced " — of early times, and is still
called 'Ain-Qadis, "the spring of Kadesh." Gerar
is the modern Umm el-Jerar, now desolate and barren,
all that remains of its past being a lofty mound of
rubbish and a mass of potsherds. It lies a few hours
only to the south of Gaza.

Here Isaac was born and circumcised, and here
Ishmael and Hagar were cast forth into the wilderness
and went to dwell in the desert of Paran. The terri-
tory of Gerar extended to Beer-sheba, "the well of the
oath," where Abraham's servants digged a well, and
Abimelech, king of Gerar, confirmed his possession of

i56 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

it by an oath. It may be that one of the two wells
which still exist at Wadi es-Seba', with the stones
that line their mouths deeply indented by the ropes
of the water-drawers, is the very one around which
the herdsmen of Abraham and Abimelech wrangled
with each other. The wells of the desert go back to
a great antiquity : where water is scarce its discovery
is not easily forgotten, and the Beduin come with their
flocks year after year to drink of it. The old wells are
constantly renewed, or new ones dug by their side.

Gerar was in that south-western corner of Palestine
which in the age of the Exodus was inhabited by the
Philistines. But they had been new-comers. All
through the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth
Egyptian dynasties the country had been in the hands
of the Egyptians. Gaza had been their frontier fort-
ress, and as late as the reign of Meneptah, the son
of the Pharaoh of the Oppression, it was still gar-
risoned by Egyptian troops and governed by Egyptian
officers. The Pulsata or Philistines did not arrive till
the troublous days of Ramses III., of the twentieth
dynasty. They formed part of the barbarian hordes
from the shores of Asia Minor and the islands of the
^Egean, who swarmed over Syria and flung them-
selves on the valley of the Nile, and the land of
Caphtor from which they came was probably the island
of Krete. The Philistine occupation of the coast-
land of Canaan therefore did not long precede the
Israelitish invasion of the Promised Land ; indeed we
may perhaps gather from the words of Exodus (xiii.
17) that the Philistines were already winning for them-
selves their new territory when the Israelites marched
out of Egypt. In saying, consequently, that the king-
dom of Abimelech was in the land of the Philistines

THE PATRIARCHS 157

the Book of Genesis speaks proleptically : when the
story of Abraham and Abimelech was written in its
present form Gerar was a Philistine town : in the days
of the Patriarchs this was not yet the case.

At Beer-sheba Abraham planted a tamarisk, and
"called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God."
Beer-sheba long remained one of the sacred places of
Palestine. The tree planted by its well was a sign
both of the water that flowed beneath its soil and of
its sacred character. It was only where fresh water
was found that the nomads of the desert could come
together, and the tree was a token of the life and
refreshment they would meet with. The well was
sacred ; so also was the solitary tree which stood beside
it, and under whose branches man and beast could find
shade and protection from the mid-day heat. Even
Mohammedanism, that Puritanism of the East, has
not been able to eradicate the belief in the divine
nature of such trees from the mind of the nomad; we
may still see them decorated with offerings of rags
torn from the garments of the passer-by or shading
the tomb of some reputed saint. They are still more
than waymarks or resting-places for the heated and
weary ; when standing beneath them the herdsman
feels that he is walking upon consecrated ground.

It was at Beer-sheba that the temptation came to
Abraham to sacrifice his first-born, his only son Isaac.
The temptation was in accordance with the fierce ritual
of Syria, and traces of the belief which had called it
into existence are to be found in the early literature
of Babylonia. Thus in an ancient Babylonian ritual-
text we read : " The scapegoat who raises his head
among mankind, the scapegoat for his life he gave;
the head of the scapegoat for the head of the man he

i58 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

gave; the neck of the scapegoat for the neck of the
man he gave." Phoenician legend told how the god
El had robed himself in royal purple and sacrificed
his only son Yeud in a time of pestilence, and the
writers of Greece and Rome describe with horror the
sacrifices of the first-born with which the history of
Carthage was stained. The father was called upon
in time of trouble to yield up to the god his nearest
and dearest ; the fruit of his body could alone wipe
away the sin of his soul, and Baal required him to
sacrifice without a murmur or a tear his first-born and
his only one. The more precious the offering, the
more acceptable was it to the god; the harder the
struggle to resign it, the greater was the merit of
doing so. The child died for the sins of his people;
and the belief was but the blind and ignorant expres-
sion of a true instinct.

But Abraham was to be taught a better way. For
three days he journeyed northward with his son, and
then lifting up his eyes saw afar off that mountain "in
the land of Moriah," on the summit of which the sacri-
fice was to be consummated. Alone with Isaac he
ascended to the high-place, and there building his
altar and binding to it his son he prepared to perform
the terrible rite. But at the last moment his hand was
stayed, a new and better revelation was made to him,
and a ram was substituted for his son. It cannot be
accidental that, as M. Clermont-Ganneau has pointed
out, we learn from the temple-tariffs of Carthage and
Marseilles that in the later ritual of Phoenicia a ram
took the place of the earlier human sacrifice.

Where was this mountain in the land of Moriah
whereon the altar of Abraham was built? It would
seem from a passage in the Second Book of Chronicles

THE PATRIARCHS 159

(iii. 1) that it was the future temple-mount at Jeru-
salem. The words of Genesis also point in the same
direction. Abraham, we read, "called the name of that
place Jehovah-jireh : as it is said to this day, In the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen." It is hard to
believe that "the mount of the Lord" can mean any-
thing else than that har-el or "mountain of God"
whereon Ezekiel places the temple, or that the proverb
can refer to a less holy spot than that where the Lord
appeared enthroned upon the cherubim above the
mercy-seat. It is doubtful, however, whether the
reading of the Hebrew text in either passage is correct.
According to the Septuagint the proverb quoted in
Genesis should run: "In the mountain is the Lord
seen," and the same authority changes the "Moriah "
of the Book of Chronicles into Amoreia, "of the
Amorites."

It is true that the distance of Jerusalem from Beer-
sheba would agree well with the three days' journey
of Abraham. But it is difficult to reconcile the descrip-
tion of the scene of Abraham's sacrifice with the future
temple^mount. Where Isaac was bound to the altar
was a solitary spot, the patriarch and his son were
alone there, and it was overgrown with brushwood so
thickly that a ram had been caught in it by h'is horns.
The temple-mount, on the contrary, was either within
the walls of a city or just outside them, and the city
was already a capital famous for its worship of "the
most High God." Had the Moriah of Jerusalem
really been the site of Abraham's altar it is strange
that no allusion is made to the fact by the writers of
the Old Testament, or that tradition should have been
silent on the matter. We must be content with the
knowledge that it was to one of the mountains "in the

160 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

land of Moriah " that Abraham was led, and that
"Moriah " was a "land," not a single mountain-peak.1

Abraham returned to Beer-sheba, and from thence
went to Hebron, where Sarah died. Hebron — or
Kirjath-Arba as it was then called — was occupied by
a Hittite tribe, in contradistinction to the country
round about it, which was in the possession of the
Amorites. As at Jerusalem, or at Kadesh on the
Orontes, the Hittites had intruded into Amoritish
territory and established themselves in the fortress-
town. But while the Hittite city was known as
Kirjath-Arba, "the city of Arba," the Amoritish dis-
trict was named Mamre : the union of Kirjath-Arba
and Mamre created the Hebron of a later day.

Kirjath-Arba seems to have been built in the valley,
close to the pools which still provide water for its
modern inhabitants. On the eastern side the slope of
the hill is honeycombed with tombs cut in the rock,
and, if ancient tradition is to be believed, it was in
one of these that Abraham desired to lay the body of
his wife. The "double cave" of Machpelah — for so
the Septuagint renders the phrase — was in the field
of Ephron the Hittite, and from Ephron, accordingly,
the Hebrew patriarch purchased the land for 400
shekels of silver, or about £47. The cave, we are
told, lay opposite Mamre, which goes to show that
the oak under which Abraham once pitched his tent
may not have been very far distant from that still
pointed out as the oak of Mamre in the grounds of
the Russian hospice. The traditional tomb of Mach-

1 We should not forget that the Septuagint reads "the high-
lands," that is, Moreh instead of Moriah^ while the Syriac version
boldly changes the word into the name of the " Amorites." For
arguments on the other side, see p. 68.

THE PATRIARCHS 161

pelah has been venerated alike by Jew, Christian, and
Mohammedan. The church built over it in Byzantine
days and restored by the Crusaders to Christian
worship has been transformed into a mosque, but its
sanctity has remained unchanged. It stands in the
middle of a court, enclosed by a solid wall of massive
stones, the lower courses of which were cut and laid
in their places in the age of Herod. The fanatical
Moslem is unwilling that any but himself should enter
the sacred precincts, but by climbing the cliff behind
the town it is possible to look down upon the mosque
and its sacred enclosure, and see the whole building
spread out like a map below the feet.

More than one English traveller has been permitted
to enter the mosque, and we are now well acquainted
with the details of its architecture. But the rock-cut
tomb in which the bodies of the Patriarchs are sup-
posed to have lain has never been examined by the
explorer. It is probable, however, that were he to
penetrate into it he would find nothing to reward his
pains. During the long period that Hebron was in
Christian hands the cave was more than once visited
by the pilgrim. But we look in vain in the records
which have come down to us for an account of the
relics it has been supposed to contain. Had the
mummified corpses of the Patriarchs been preserved
in it, the fact would have been known to the travellers
of the Crusading age.1

Like the other tombs in its neighbourhood, the cave
of Machpelah has doubtless been opened and despoiled
at an early epoch. We know that tombs were violated
in Egypt long before the days of Abraham, in spite
of the penalties with which such acts of sacrilege were
1 See the Zeitschrift des deutschen Paldstina-Vereins, 1895.

L

i62 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

visited, and the cupidity of the Canaanite was no less
great than that of the Egyptian. The treasures buried
with the dead were too potent an attraction, and the
robber of the tomb braved for their sake the terrors
of both this world and the next.

Abraham now sent his servant to Mesopotamia, to
seek there for a wife for his son Isaac from among his
kinsfolk of Harran. Rebekah, the sister of Laban,
accordingly, was brought to Canaan and wedded to
her cousin. Isaac was at the time in the southern
desert, encamped at the well of Lahairoi, near Kadesh.
So "Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."

"Then again," we are told, "Abraham took a wife,"
whose name was Keturah, and by whom he was the
forefather of a number of Arabian tribes. They occu-
pied the northern and central parts of the Arabian
peninsular, by the side of the Ishmaelites, and colon-
ized the land of Midian. It is the last we hear of the
great patriarch. He died soon afterwards "in a good
old age," and was buried at Machpelah along with his
wife.

Isaac still dwell at Lahai-roi, and there the twins,
Esau and Jacob, were born to him. There, too, he
still was when a famine fell upon the land, like "the
first famine that was in the days of Abraham." The
story of Abraham's dealings with Abimelech of Gerar
is repeated in the case of Isaac. Again we hear of
Phichol, the captain of Abimelech's army; again the
wife of the patriarch is described as his sister; and
again his herdsmen strive with those of the king of
Gerar over the wells they have dug, and the well of
Beer-sheba is made to derive its name from the oaths
sworn mutually by Isaac and the king. It is hardly
conceivable that history could have so closely repeated

THE PATRIARCHS 163

itself, that the lives of the king and commander-in-
chief of Gerar could have extended over so many
years, or that the origin of the name of Beer-sheba
would have been so quickly forgotten. Rather we
must believe that two narratives have been mingled
together, and that the earlier visit of Abraham to
Gerar has coloured the story of Isaac's sojourn in the
territory of Abimelech. We need not refuse to believe
that the servants of Isaac dug wells and wrangled over
them with the native herdsmen ; that Beer-sheba
should twice have received its name from a repetition
of the same event is a different matter. One of the
wells — that of Rehoboth — made by Isaac's servants is
probably referred to in the Egyptian Travels of a
Mohar, where it is called Rehoburta.

Isaac was not a wanderer like his father. Lahai-roi
in the desert, "the valley of Gerar," Beer-sheba and
Hebron, were the places round which his life revolved,
and they were all close to one another. There is no
trace of his presence in the north of Palestine, and
when the prophet Amos (vii. 16) makes Isaac
synonymous with the northern kingdom of Israel,
there can be no geographical reference in his words.
Isaac died eventually at Hebron, and was buried in
the family tomb of Machpelah.

But long before this happened Jacob had fled from
the well-deserved wrath of his brother to his uncle
Laban at Harran. On his way he had slept on the
rocky ridge of Bethel, and had beheld in vision the
angels of God ascending and descending the steps of
a staircase that led to heaven. The nature of the
ground itself must have suggested the dream. The
limestone rock is fissured into step-like terraces, which
seem formed of blocks of stone piled one upon the
l 2

164 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

other, and rising upwards like a gigantic staircase
towards the sky. On the hill that towers above the
ruins of Beth-el, we may still fancy that we see before
us the "ladder " of Jacob.

But the vision was more than a mere dream. God
appeared in it to the patriarch, and repeated to him
the promise that had been made to his fathers.
Through Jacob, the younger of the twins, the true line
of Abraham was to be carried on. When he awoke
in the morning the fugitive recognized the real char-
acter of his dream. He took, accordingly, the stone
that had served him for a pillow, and setting it up as
an altar, poured oil upon it, and so made it a Beth-el,
or " House of God." Henceforward it was a con-
secrated altar, a holy memorial of the God whose
divinity had been mysteriously imparted to it.

The Semitic world was full of such Beth-els, or con-
secrated stones. They are referred to in the literature
of ancient Babylonia, and an English traveller, Mr.
Doughty, has found them still existing near the Tema
of the Old Testament in Northern Arabia. In
Phoenicia we are told that they abounded. The soli-
tary rock in the desert or on the mountain-side seemed
to the primitive Semite the dwelling-place of deity ;
it rose up awe-striking and impressive in its solitary
grandeur and venerable antiquity ; it was a shelter to
him from the heat of the sun, and a protection from
the perils of the night. When his worship and adora-
tion came in time to be transferred from the stone
itself to the divinity it had begun to symbolize, it
became an altar on which the libation of oil or wine
might be poured out to the gods, and on the seals of
Syria and the sculptured slabs of Assyria we accord-
ingly find it transformed into a portable altar, and

THE PATRIARCHS 165

merged in the cone-like symbol of the goddess
Asherah. The stone which had itself been a Beth-el
wherein the deity had his home, passed by degrees
into the altar of the god whose actual dwelling-place
was in heaven.

The Canaanitish city near which Jacob had raised
the monument of his dream bore the name of Luz.
In Israelitish days, however, the name of the monu-
ment was transferred to that of the city, and Luz
itself was called the Beth-el, or "House of God."
The god worshipped there when the Israelites first
entered Canaan appears to have been entitled On, — a
name derived, perhaps, from that of the city of the
Sun-god in Egypt. Bethel was also Beth-On, "the
temple of On," .from whence the tribe of Benjamin
afterwards took the name of Ben-Oni, "the Onite."
Beth-On has survived into our own times, and the
site of the old city is still known as Beitin.

It is not needful to follow the adventures of Jacob
in Mesopotamia. His new home lay far away from
the boundaries of Palestine, and though the kings of
Aram-Naharaim made raids at times into the land of
Canaan and caused their arms to be feared within the
walls of Jerusalem, they never made any permanent
conquests on the coasts of the Mediterranean. In the
land of the Aramaeans Jacob is lost for awhile from
the history of patriarchal Palestine.

When he again emerges, it is as a middle-aged man,
rich in flocks and herds, who has won two wives as
the reward of his labours, and is already the father of
a family. He is on his way back to the country which
had been promised to his seed and wherein he himself
had been born. Laban, his father-in-law, robbed at
once of his daughters and his household gods, is

166 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

pursuing him, and has overtaken him on the spurs of
Mount Gilead, almost within sight of his goal. There
a covenant is made between the Aramaean and the
Hebrew, and a cairn of stones is piled up to com-
memorate the fact. The cairn continued to bear a
double name, the Aramaean name given to it by
Laban, and the Canaanitish name of Galeed, "the
heap of witnesses," by which it was called by Jacob.
The double name was a sign of the two populations
and languages which the cairn separated from one
another. Northward were the Aramaeans and an
Aramaic speech ; southward the land of Canaan and
the language which we term Hebrew.

The spot where the cairn was erected bore yet
another title. It was also called Mizpah, the "watch-
tower," the outpost from which the dweller in Canaan
could discern the approaching bands of an enemy
from the north or east. It protected the road to the
Jordan, and kept watch over the eastern plateau. Here
in after times Jephthah gathered around him the
patriots of Israel, and delivered his people from the
yoke of the Ammonites.

Once more "Jacob went on his way," and from the
" two-fold camp " of Mahanaim sent messengers to his
brother Esau, who had already established himself
among the mountains of Seir. Then came the mys-
terious struggle in the silent darkness of night with
one whom the patriarch believed to have been his
God Himself. When day dawned, the vision departed
from him, but not until his name had been changed.
"Thy name," it was declared to him, "shall be called
no more Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou
power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."
And his thigh was shrunken, so that the children of

THE PATRIARCHS 167

Israel in days to come abstained from eating "of the
sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the
thigh." The spot where the struggle took place,
beside the waters of the Jabbok, was named Penu-el,
"the face of God." There was more than one other
Penu-el in the Semitic world, and at Carthage the
goddess Tanith was entitled Peni-Baal, "the face of
Baal."

The name of Israel, as we may learn from its equiva-
lent, Jeshurun, was really derived from a root which
signified "to be straight," or "upright." The Israel-
ites were in truth "the people of uprightness." It is
only by one of those plays upon words, of which the
Oriental is still so fond, that the name can be brought
into connection with the word sar, "a prince." But
the name of Jacob was well known among the northern
Semites. We gather from the inscriptions of Egypt
that its full form was Jacob-el. Like Jeshurun by the
side of Israel, or Jephthah by the side of Jiphthah-el
(Josh. xix. 27), Jacob is but an abbreviated Jacob-el.
One of the places in Palestine conquered by the
Pharaoh Thothmes III., the names of which are
recorded on the walls of his temple at Karnak, was
Jacob-el — a reminiscence, doubtless, of the Hebrew
patriarch. Prof. Flinders Petrie has made us
acquainted with Egyptian scarabs on which is in-
scribed in hieroglyphic characters the name of a king,
Jacob-har or Jacob-hal, who reigned in the valley of
the Nile before Abraham entered it, and Dr. Pinches
has lately discovered the name of Jacob-el among the
persons mentioned in contracts of the time of the
Babylonian sovereign Sin-muballidh, who was a con-
temporary of Chedor-laomer. We thus have monu-
mental evidence that the name of Jacob was well

168 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

known in the Semitic world in the age of the Hebrew
patriarchs.

Jacob and Esau met and were reconciled, and Jacob
then journeyed onwards to Succoth, "the booths."
The site of this village of "booths" is unknown, but
it could not have been far from the banks of the
Jordan and the road to Nablus. The neighbourhood
of Shechem, called in Greek times Neapolis, the
Nablus of to-day, was the next resting-place of the
patriarch. If we are to follow the translation of the
Authorized Version, it would have been at "Shalem,
a city of Shechem," that his tents were pitched. But
many eminent scholars believe that the Hebrew words
should rather be rendered : "And Jacob came in peace
to the city of Shechem," the reference being to his
peaceable parting from his brother. There is, how-
ever, a hamlet still called Salim, nearly three miles to
the east of Nablus, and it may be therefore that it was
really, at a place termed Shalem that Jacob rested on
his way. In this case the field bought from Hamor,
"before the city of Shechem," cannot have been where,
since the days of our Lord, "Jacob's well" has been
pointed out (S. John iv. 5, 6). The well is situated
considerably westward of Salim, midway, in fact,
between that village and Nablus, and close to the
village of 'Askar, with which the "Sychar" of S.
John's Gospel has sometimes been identified. It has
been cut through the solid rock to a depth of more
than a hundred feet, and the groovings made by the
ropes of the water-pots in far-off centuries are still
visible at its mouth. But no water can be drawn from
it now. The well is choked with the rubbish of a
ruined church, built above it in the early days of
Christianity, and of which all that remains is a broken

THE PATRIARCHS 169

arch. It has been dug at a spot where the road from
Shechem to the Jordan branches off from that which
runs towards the north, though Shechem itself is more
than a mile distant. We should notice that S. John
does not say that the well was actually in "the parcel
of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph," only
that it was "near to" the patriarch's field.

If Jacob came to Shechem in peace, the peace was
of no long continuance. Simeon and Levi, the sons
of the patriarch, avenged the insult offered by the
Shechemite prince to their sister Dinah, by treacher-
ously falling upon the city and slaying "all the
males." Jacob was forced to fly, leaving behind him
the altar he had erected. He made for the Canaanitish
city of Luz, the Beth-el of later days, where he had
seen the great altar-stairs sloping upward to heaven.
The idols that had been carried from Mesopotamia
were buried "under the oak which was by Shechem,"
along with the ear-rings of the women. The oak was
one of those sacred trees which abounded in the
Semitic world, like another oak at Beth-el, beneath
which the nurse of Rebekah was soon afterwards to
be buried.

At Beth-el Jacob built another altar. But he could
not rest there, and once more took his way to the
south. On the road his wife Rachel died while giving
birth to his youngest son, and her tomb beside the
path to Beth-lehem was marked by a "pillar" which
the writer of the Book of Genesis tells us remained to
his own day. It indicated the boundary between the
territories of Benjamin and Judah at Zelzah (i Sam.
x. 2).

At Beth-lehem Jacob lingered a long while. His
flocks and herds were spread over the country, under

170 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

the charge of his sons, browsing on the hills and
watered at the springs for which the "hill-country
of Judah " was famous. In their search for pasturage
they wandered northward, we are told, "beyond the
tower of the Flock," which guarded the Jebusite
stronghold of Zion (Mic. iv. 8). Beth-lehem itself
was more commonly known in that age by the name
of Ephrath. Beth-lehem, "the temple of Lehem,"
must, in fact, have been the sacred name of the city
derived from the worship of its chief deity, and Mr.
Tomkins is doubtless right in seeing in this deity the
Babylonian Lakhmu, who with his consort Lakhama,
was regarded as a primaeval god of the nascent world.
At Beth-lehem Jacob was but a few miles distant
from Hebron, where Isaac still lived, and where at his
death he was buried by his sons Jacob and Esau in
the family tomb of Machpelah. It was the last time,
seemingly, that the two brothers found themselves
together. Esau, partly by marriage, partly by con-
quest, dispossessed the Horites of Mount Seir, and
founded the kingdom of Edom, while the sons and
flocks of Jacob scattered themselves from Hebron in
the south of Canaan to Shechem in its centre. The
two hallowed sanctuaries of the future kingdoms of
Judah and Israel, where the first throne was set up in
Israel and the monarchy of David was first estab-
lished, thus became the boundaries of the herdsmen's
domain. In both the Hebrew patriarch held ground
that was rightfully his own. It was a sign that the
house of Israel should hereafter occupy the land
which the family of Israel thus roamed over with
their flocks. The nomad was already passing
into the settler, with fields and burial-places of
his own.

THE PATRIARCHS 171

But before the transformation could be fully accom-
plished, a long season of growth and preparation was
needful. Egypt, and not Canaan, was to be the land
in which the Chosen People should be trained for their
future work. Canaan itself was to pass under
Egyptian dominion, and to replace the influence of
Babylonian culture by that of Egypt. It was a new
world and a new civilization into which the descend-
ants of Jacob were destined to emerge when finally
they escaped from the fiery furnace of Egyptian
bondage. The Egypt known to Jacob was an Egypt
over which Asiatic princes ruled, and whose vizier
was himself a Hebrew. It was the Egypt of the
Hyksos conquerors, whose capital was Zoan, on the
frontiers of Asia, and whose people were the slaves
of an Asiatic stranger. The Egypt quitted by his
descendants was one which had subjected Asia to
itself, and had carried the spoils of Syria to its splen-
did capital in the far south. The Asiatic wave had
been rolled back from the banks of the Nile, and
Egyptian conquest and culture had overflooded Asia
as far as the Euphrates.

But it was not Egypt alone which had undergone a
change. The Canaan of Abraham and Jacob looked
to Babylonia for its civilization, its literature, and its
laws. Its princes recognized at times the supremacy
of the Babylonian sovereigns, and the deities of Baby-
lonia were worshipped in its midst. The Canaan of
Moses had long been a province of the Egyptian
Empire ; Egyptian rule had been substituted for that
of Babylon, and the manners and customs of Egypt
had penetrated deeply into the minds of its inhabit-
ants. The Hittite invasion from the north had blocked
the high-road to Babylonia, and diverted the trade of

172 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Palestine towards the west and the south. While
Abraham, the native of Ur, and the emigrant from
Harran, had found himself in Canaan, and even at
Zoan, still within the sphere of the influences among
which he had grown up, the fugitives from Egypt
entered on the invasion of a country which had but
just been delivered from the yoke of the Pharaohs.
It was an Egyptian Canaan that the Israelites were
called upon to subdue, and it was fitting therefore that
they should have been made ready for the task by
their long sojourn in the land of Goshen.

How that sojourn came about, it is not for us to
recount. The story of Joseph is too familiar to be
repeated, though we are but just beginning to learn
how true it is, in all its details, to the facts which
Egyptian research is bringing more and more fully
to light. We see the Midianite and Ishmaelite
caravan passing Dothan — still known by its ancient
name — with their bales of spicery from Gilead for
the dwellers in the delta, and carrying away with them
the young Hebrew slave. We watch his rise in the
house of his Egyptian master, his wrongful imprison-
ment and sudden exaltation when he sits by the side
of Pharaoh and governs Egypt in the name of the
king. We read the pathetic story of the old father
sending his sons to buy corn from the royal granaries
or larits of Egypt, and withholding to the last his
youngest and dearest one ; of the Beduin shepherds
bowing all unconsciously before the brother whom
they had sold into slavery, and who now holds in his
hands the power of life and death; of Joseph's dis-
closure of himself to the conscious-stricken suppliants;
of Jacob's cry when convinced at last that "the
governor over all the land of Egypt " was his long-

THE PATRIARCHS 173

mourned son. "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet
alive : I will go and see him before I die."

Jacob and his family travelled in wagons along the
high-road which connected the south of Palestine with
the Delta. It led past Beer-sheba and El-Arish to the
Shur, or line of fortifications which protected the
eastern frontier of Egypt. The modern caravan road
follows its course most of the way. It was thus dis-
tinct from "the way of the Philistines," which led
along the coast of the Mediterranean, on the northern
edge of the Sirbonian Lake. In Egypt the Israelitish
emigrants settled not far from the Hyksos capital in
the land of Goshen, which the excavations of Dr.
Naville have shown to be the Wadi Tumilat of to-day.
Here they multiplied and grew wealthy, until the
evil days came when the Egyptians rose up
against Semitic influence and control, and Ramses II.
transformed the free-born Beduin into public
serfs.

But the age of Ramses II. was still far distant when
Jacob died full of years, and his mummy was carried
to the burial-place of his fathers "in the land of
Canaan." Local tradition connected the name of
Abel-mizraim, "the meadow of Egypt," on the eastern
side of the Jordan, with the long funeral procession
which wended its way from Zoan to Hebron. We
cannot believe, however, that the mourners would
have so far gone out of their road, even if the
etymology assigned by tradition to the name could
be supported. The tradition bears witness to the fact
of the procession, but to nothing more.

With the funeral of Jacob a veil falls upon the
Biblical history of Canaan, until the days when the
spies were sent out to search the land. Joseph was

i74 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

buried in Egypt, not at Hebron, though he had made
the Israelites swear before his death that his mummy
should be eventually taken to Palestine. The road to
Hebron, it is clear, was no longer open, and the power
of the Hyksos princes must have been fast waning.
The war of independence had broken out, and the
native kings of Upper Egypt were driving the
foreigner back into Asia. The rulers of Zoan had no
longer troops to spare for a funeral procession through
the eastern desert.

The Chronicler, however, has preserved a notice
which seems to show that a connection was still kept
up between southern Canaan and the Hebrew settlers
in Goshen, even after Jacob's death, perhaps while he
was yet living. We are told that certain of the sons of
Ephraim were slain by the men of Gath, whose cattle
they had attempted to steal, and that their father, after
mourning many days, comforted himself with the birth
of other sons (i Chron. vii. 21-26). The notice,
moreover, does not stand alone. Thothmes III., the
great conqueror of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty,
states that two of the places captured by him in Pales-
tine were Jacob-el and Joseph-el. It is tempting to
see in the two names reminiscences of the Hebrew
patriarch and his son. If so, the name of Joseph
would have been impressed upon a locality in Canaan
more than two centuries before the Exodus. The
geographical lists of Thothmes III. and the fragments
of early history preserved by the Chronicler would
thus support and complete one another. The Egyptian
cavalry who accompanied the mummy of Jacob to its
resting-place at Machpelah, would not be the only
evidence of the authority claimed by Joseph and his
master in the land of Canaan ; Joseph himself would

THE PATRIARCHS 175

have left his name there, and his grand-children would
have fought against "the men of Gath."

But these are speculations which may, or may not,
be confirmed by archaeological discovery. For the
Book of Genesis Canaan disappears from sight with
the death of Jacob. Henceforward it is upon Egypt
and the nomad settlers in Goshen that the attention
of the Pentateuch is fixed, until the time comes when
the age of the patriarchs is superseded by that of the
legislator, and Moses, the adopted son of the Egyptian
princess, leads his people back to Canaan. Joseph
had been carried by Midianitish hands out of Pales-
tine into Egypt, there to become the representative of
the Pharaoh, and son-in-law of the high-priest of
Heliopolis; for Moses, the adopted grandson of the
Pharaoh, "learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians," it was reserved, after years of trial and
preparation in Midian, to bring the descendants of
Jacob out of their Egyptian prison-house to the
borders of the Promised Land.

CHAPTER V

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN

Palestine has been a land of pilgrims and tourists
from the very beginning of its history. It was the
goal of the migration of Abraham and his family, and
it was equally the object of the oldest book of travels
with which we are acquainted. Allusion has already
been made more than once to the Egyptian papyrus,
usually known as The Travels of a Mohar, and in
which a satirical account is given of a tour in Pales-
tine and Syria. The writer was a professor, appar-
ently of literature, in the court of Ramses II., and
he published a series of letters to his friend, Nekht-
sotep, which were long admired as models of style.
Nekht-sotep was one of the secretaries attached to the
military staff, and among the letters is a sort of parody
of an account given by Nekht-sotep of his adventures
in Canaan, which was intended partly to show how
an account of the kind ought to have been written by
an accomplished penman, partly to prove the superi-
ority of the scribe's life to that of the soldier, partly
also, it may be, for the sake of teasing the writer's
correspondent. Nekht-sotep had evidently assumed
airs of superiority on the strength of his foreign
travels, and his stay-at-home friend undertook to
demonstrate that he had himself enjoyed the more
comfortable life of the two. Nekht-sotep is playfully
dubbed with the foreign title of Mohar — or more
176

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 177

correctly Muhir — a word borrowed from Assyrian,
where it primarily signified a military commander and
then the governor of a province.

Long before the days of the nineteenth dynasty,
however, there had been Egyptian travellers in Pales-
tine, or at least in the adjoining countries. One of
the Egyptian books which have come down to us con-
tains the story of a certain Sinuhit who had to fly
from Egypt in consequence of some political troubles
in which he was involved after the death of Amon-m-
hat I. of the twelfth dynasty. Crossing the Nile near
Kher-ahu, the Old Cairo of to-day, he gained the
eastern bank of the river and made his way to the
line of forts which protected Egypt from its Asiatic
enemies. Here he crouched among the desert bushes
till night-fall, lest "the watchmen of the tower"
should see him, and then pursued his journey under
the cover of darkness. At daybreak he reached the
land of Peten and the wadi of Qem-uer on the line
of the modern Suez Canal. There thirst seized upon
him; his throat rattled, and he said to himself — "This
is the taste of death." A Bedawi, however, perceived
him and had compassion on the fugitive : he gave him
water and boiled milk, and Sinuhit for a while joined
the nomad tribe. Then he passed on to the country
of Qedem, the Kadmonites of the Old Testament
(Gen. xv. 19; Judges vi. 3), whence came the wise
men of the East (1 Kings iv. 30). After spending a
year and a half there, 'Ammu-nnshi, the prince of the
Upper land of Tenu, asked the Egyptian stranger to
come to him, telling him that he would hear the
language of Egypt. He added that he had already
heard about Sinuhit from "the Egyptians who were
in the country." It is clear from this that there had
y

178 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

been intercourse for some time between Egypt and
"the Upper Tenu."

It is probable that Dr. W. Max Miiller is right in
seeing in Tenu an abbreviated form of Lutennu (or
Rutenu), the name by which Syria was known to the
Egyptians. There was an Upper Lutennu and a
Lower Lutennu, the Upper Lutenna corresponding
with Palestine and the adjoining country, and thus
including the district near Beyrout of which 'Ammu-
anshi or Ammi-anshi was king. In the name of
'Ammu-anshi, it may be observed, we have the name
of the deity who appears as Ammi or Ammon in the
kingdom of the Ammonites, and perhaps forms the
second element in the name of Balaam. The same
divine name enters into the composition of those of
early kings of Ma'in in Southern Arabia, as well as
of Babylonia in the far East.1

'Ammu-anshi married Sinuhit to his eldest
daughter, and bestowed upon him the government
of a district called Aia which lay on the frontier of
a neighbouring country. Aia is described as rich in
vines, figs, and olives, in wrheat and barley, in milk
and cattle. "Its wine was more plentiful than water,"
and Sinuhit had "daily rations of bread and wine,
cooked meat and roast fowl," as well as abundance of
game. He lived there for many years. The children
born to him by his Asiatic wife grew up and became
heads of tribes. " I gave water to the thirsty," he
says ; " I set on his journey the traveller who had been
hindered from passing by; I chastised the brigand. I
commanded the Beduin, who departed afar to strike and
repel the princes of foreign lands, and they marched
(under me), for the prince of Tenu allowed that I should
be during long years the general of his soldiers."
1 See above, p. 54.

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 179

Sinuhit, in fact, had given proof of his personal
prowess at an early period in his career. The
champion of Tenu had come to him in his tent and
challenged him to single combat. The Egyptian was
armed with bow, arrows, and dagger ; his adversary
with battle-axe, javelins, and buckler. The contest
was short, and ended in the decisive victory of Sinuhit,
who wounded his rival and despoiled him of his
goods.

A time came, however, when Sinuhit grew old, and
began to long to see once more the land of his fathers
before he died. Accordingly he sent a petition to the
Pharaoh praying him to forgive the offences of his
youth and allow him to return again to Egypt. The
petition was granted, and a letter was despatched to
the refugee, permitting him to return. Sinuhit accord-
ingly quitted the land where he had lived so long.
First of all he held a festival, and handed over his
property to his children, making his eldest son the
chief of the tribe. Then he travelled southward to
Egypt, and was graciously received at court. The
coarse garments of the Beduin were exchanged for
fine linen ; his body was bathed with water and
scented essences; he lay once more on a couch and
enjoyed the luxurious cookery of the Egyptians. A
house and pyramid were built for him ; a garden was
laid out for him with a lake and a kiosk, and a golden
statue with a robe of electrum was set up in it.
Sinuhit ceased to be an Asiatic "barbarian," and
became once more a civilized Egyptian.

The travels of Sinuhit were involuntary, but a time
came when a tour in Palestine was almost as much the
fashion as it is to-day. The conquests of Thothmes
III. had made Syria an Egyptian province, and had
introduced Syrians into the Egyptian bureaucracy.

i8o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Good roads were made throughout the newly-acquired
territory, furnished with post-houses where food and
lodging could be procured, and communication be-
tween Egypt and Canaan thus became easy and fre-
quent. The fall of the eighteenth dynasty caused
only a momentary break in the intercourse between
the two countries; with the establishment of the nine-
teenth dynasty it was again resumed. Messengers
passed backward and forward between Syria and the
court of the Pharaoh ; Asiatics once more thronged
into the valley of the Nile, and the Egyptian civil
servant and traveller followed in the wake of the
victorious armies of Seti and Ramses. The Travels
of a Mohar is the result of this renewed acquaintance
with the cities and roads of Palestine.

The writer is anxious to display his knowledge
of Syrian geography. Though he had not himself
ventured to brave the discomforts of foreign travel,
he wished to show that he knew as much about Canaan
as those who had actually been there. A tour there
was, after all, not much to boast of; it had become so
common that the geography of Canaan was as well
known as that of Egypt itself, and the stay-at-home
scribe had consequently no difficulty in compiling a
guide-book to it.

The following is the translation given by Dr.
Brugsch of the papyrus, with such alterations as
have been necessitated by further study and research.
"I will portray for thee the likeness of a Mohar, I
will let thee know what he does. Hast thou not gone
to the land of the Hittites, and hast thou not seen
the land of Aupa? Dost thou not know what
Khaduma is like; the land of Igad'i also how it is
formed? The Zar (or Plain) of king Sesetsu (Sesos-

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 181

tris) — on which side of it lies the town of Aleppo,
and how is its ford? Hast thou not taken thy road
to Kadesh (on the Orontes) and Tubikhi ? Hast thou
not gone to the Shasu (Beduin) with numerous mer-
cenaries, and hast thou not trodden the way to the
Maghar[at] (the caves of the Magoras near Beyrout)
where the heaven is dark in the daytime ? The place
is planted with maple-trees, oaks, and acacias, which
reach up to heaven, full of beasts, bears ( ?), and lions,
and surrounded by Shasu in all directions. Hast thou
not ascended the mountain of Shaua, and hast thou
not trodden it? There thy hands hold fast to the
[rein] of thy chariot ; a jerk has shaken thy horses in
drawing it. I pray thee, let us go to the city of
Beeroth (Beyrout). Hast thou not hastened to its
ascent after passing over the ford in front of it?

"Do thou explain this relish for [the life of] a
Mohar ! Thy chariot lies there [before] thee ; thy
[feet] have fallen lame; thou treadest the backward
path at eventide. All thy limbs are ground small.
Thy [bones] are broken to pieces, and thou dost fall
asleep. Thou awakest : it is the time of gloomy night,
and thou art alone. Has not a thief come to rob thee ?
Some grooms have entered the stable ; the horse kicks
out ; the thief has made off in the night, thy clothes
are stolen. Thy groom wakes up in the night; he
sees what has happened to him ; he takes what is left,
he goes off to bad company, he joins the Beduin. He
transforms himself into an Asiatic. The police (?)
come, they [feel about] for the robber; he is dis-
covered, and is immovable from terror. Thou wakest,
thou findest no trace of them, for they have carried off
thy property.

"Become [again] a Mohar who is fully accoutred.

182 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Let thy ear be filled with that which I relate to thee
besides.

"The town ' Hidden ' — such is the meaning of its
name Gebal — what is its condition ? Its goddess [we
will speak of] at another time. Hast thou not visited
it ? Be good enough to look out for Beyrout, Sidon,
and Sarepta. Where are the fords of the land of
Nazana? The country of Authu (Usu), what is its
condition ? They are situated above another city in
the sea, Tyre the port is its name. Drinking-water is
brought to it in boats. It is richer in fishes than in
sand. I will tell thee of something else. It is danger-
ous to enter Zair'aun. Thou wilt say it is burning
with a very painful sting ( ?). Come, Mohar. Go
forward on the way to the land of Pa-'A . . ina.
Where is the road to Achshaph (Ekdippa) ? Towards
which town ? Pray look at the mountain of User.
How is its crest ? Where is the mountain of Sakama
(Shechem) ? Who can surmount it? Mohar, whither
must you take a journey to the land of Hazor ? How
is its ford ? Show me how one goes to Hamath,
Dagara, [and] Dagar-el, to the place where all Mohars
meet ? Be good enough to spy out its road ; cast a
look on Ya . . . When one goes to the land of
Adamim, to what is one opposite ? Do not draw back,
but instruct us. Guide us, that we may know, O
leader !

" I will name to thee other cities besides these. Hast
thou not gone to the land of Takhis, to Kafir-Marona,
Tamnah, Kadesh, Dapul, Azai, Har-nammata, and
hast thou not seen Kirjath-Anab, near Beth-Sopher?
and dost thou not know Adullam [and] Zidiputa ? Or
dost thou not know any better the name of Khalza in
the land of Aupa, [like] a bull upon its frontiers?

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 183

Here is the place where all the mighty warriors are
seen. Be good enough to look and see the chapel of
the land of Qina, and tell me about Rehob. Describe
Beth-sha-el (Beth-el), along with Tarqa-el. The ford
of the land of Jordan, how is it crossed? Teach me
to know the passage that leads to the land of Megiddo,
which lies in front of it. Verily thou art a Mohar,
well skilled in the work of the strong hand. Pray, is
there found a Mohar like thee, to place at the head of
the army, or a seigneur who can beat thee in shooting ?

"Beware of the gorge of the precipice, 2000 cubits
deep, which is full of rocks and boulders. Thou
turnest back in a zigzag, thou bearest thy bow, thou
takest the iron in thy left hand. Thou lettest the old
men see, if their eyes are good, how, worn out with
fatigue, thou supportest thyself with thy hand. Ebed
gamal Mohar n'amu (' A camel's slave is the Mohar !
they say ') ; so they say, and thou gainest a name
among the Mohars and the knights of the land of
Egypt. Thy name becomes like that of Qazairdai,
the lord of Asel, when the lions found him in the
thicket, in the defile which is rendered dangerous by
the Shasu who lie in ambush among the trees. They
measured four cubits from the nose to the heel, they
had a grinf look, without softness ; they cared not
for caresses.

"Thou art alone, no strong one is with thee, no
armee is behind thee, no Ariel who prepares the way
for thee, and gives thee information of the road before
thee. Thou knowest not the road. The hair on thy
head stands on end; it bristles up. Thy soul is given
into thy hands. Thy path is full of rocks and
boulders, there is no outlet near, it is overgrown with
creepers and wolf's-bane. The precipice is on one

1 84 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

side of thee, the mountain and the wall of rock on the
other. Thou drivest in against it. The chariot jumps
on which thou art. Thou are troubled to hold up thy
horses. If it falls down the precipice, the pole drags
thee down too. Thy ceintures are pulled away. They
fall down. Thou shacklest the horse, because the
pole is broken on the path of the defile. Not knowing
how to tie it up, thou understandest not how it is to
be repaired. The essieu is left on the spot, as the
load is too heavy for the horses. Thy courage has
evaporated. Thou beginnest to run. The heaven is
cloudless. Thou art thirsty ; the enemy is behind
thee ; a trembling seizes thee ; a twig of thorny acacia
worries thee; thou thrustest it aside; the horse is
scratched till at length thou findest rest.

"Explain to me thy liking for [the life of] a Mohar !

"Thou comest into Joppa; thou findest the date-
palm in full bloom in its time. Thou openest wide
thy mouth in order to eat. Thou findest that the maid
who keeps the garden is fair. She does whatever thou
wantest of her. . . Thou art recognized, thou art
brought to trial, and owest thy preservation to being
a \Mohar. Thy girdle of the finest stuff thou payest
as the price of a worthless rag. Thou sleepest every
evening with a rug of fur over thee. "Thou sleepest
a deep sleep, for thou art weary. A thief steals
thy bow and thy sword from thy side ; thy quiver and
thy armour are cut to pieces in the darkness; thy pair
of horses run away. The groom takes his course over
a slippery path which rises before him. He breaks
thy chariot in pieces; he follows thy footsteps. [He
finds] thy equipments which had fallen on the ground
and had sunk into the sand, leaving only an empty
space.

"Prayer does not avail thee, even when thy mouth

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 185

says, ' Give food in addition to water, that I may-
reach my goal in safety,' they are deaf and will not
hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-
workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the
workshops of the carpenters; the handicraftsmen and
saddlers are at hand ; they do whatever thou requirest.
They put together thy chariot ; they put aside the parts
of it that are made useless; thy spokes are fagonne
quite new ; thy wheels are put on ; they put the
courroies on the axles and on the hinder part ; they
splice thy yoke, they put on the box of thy chariot ;
the [workmen] in iron forge the . . . ; they put the
ring that is wanting on thy whip, they replace the
lanieres upon it.

"Thou goest quickly onward to fight on the battle-
field, to do the deeds of a strong hand and of firm
courage.

"Before I wrote I sought me out a Mohar who
knows his power and leads the jeunesse, a chief in the
armee, [who travels] even to the end of the world.

"Answer me not ' This is good; this is bad; ' repeat
not to me your opinion. Come, I will tell thee all that
lies before thee at the end of thy journey.

" I begin for thee with the palace of Sesetsu (Sesos-
tris). Hast thou not set foot in it by force? Hast
thou not eaten the fish in the brook . . . ? Hast thou
not washed thyself in it? With thy permission I
will remind thee of Huzana; where is its fortress?
Come, I pray thee, to the palace of the land of Uazit,
even to Osymandyas (Ramses II.) in his victories,
[to] S . . z-el, together with Absaqbu. I will inform
thee of the land of 'Ainin (the two Springs), the
customs of which thou knowest not. The land of the
lake of Nakhai, and the land of Rehoburta thou hast
not seen since thou wast born, O Mohar. Rapih is

186 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

widely extended. What is its wall like? It extends
for a mile in the direction of Gaza."

The French words introduced from time to time by
Dr. Brugsch into the translation represent the Semitic
words which the Egyptian writer has employed. They
illustrate the fashionable tendency of his day to fill
the Egyptian vocabulary with the words and phrases
of Canaan. It was the revenge taken by Palestine for
its invasion and conquest by the armies of Seti and
Ramses. Thus armee corresponds to the Semitic
tsaba, "army," jeunesse to na'aruna, "young men."
The Egyptian scribe, however, sometimes made mis-
takes similar to those which modern novelists are apt
to commit in their French quotations. Instead of
writing, as he intended, 'ebed gamal Mohar na'amu
("a camel's slave is the Mohar ! they say"), he has
assigned the Canaanite vowel ayin to the wrong word,
and mis-spelt the name of the "camel," so that the
phrase is transformed into abad kamal Mohar n'amu
("the camel of the Mohar has perished, they are
pleasant ").1

Most of the geographical names mentioned in the
papyrus can be identified. Aupa, the Ubi of the Tel
el-Amarna tablets, was on the borders of the land of
the Hittites, and not far from Aleppo. The Zar or
"Plain " of Sesostris makes its appearance in the lists
of conquered towns and countries which were drawn
up by Thothmes III., Seti I., Ramses II., and
Ramses III., in order to commemorate their victories
in Syria. The word probably migrated from Baby-

1 It is curious that a similar mistake in regard to the spelling of
' ebed, " slave " or " servant," has been made in an Aramaic inscrip-
tion which I have discovered on the rocks near Silsileh in Upper
Egypt, where the name of Ebed-Nebo is written Abed-Nebo.

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 187

Ionia, where the zeru denoted the alluvial plain which
lay between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Kadesh,
the southern capital of the Hittites, "in the land of
the Amorites," lay on the Orontes, close to the lake
of Horns, and has been identified by Col. Conder
with the modern Tel em-Mindeh. Tubikhi, of which
we have already heard in the Tel el-Amarna letters,
is also mentioned in the geographical lists inscribed
by Thothmes III. on the walls of his temple at Karnak
(No. 6); it there precedes the name of Kamta or
Qamdu, the Kumidi of Tel el-Amarna. It is the
Tibhath of the Old Testament, out of which David
took "very much brass" (1 Chron. xviii. 8). The
Maghar(at) or "Caves" gave their name to the
Magoras, the river of Beyrout, as well as to the
Mearah of the Book of Joshua (xiii. 4). As for the
mountain of Shaua, it is described by the Assyrian
king Tiglath-pileser III. as in the neighbourhood of
the northern Lebanon, while the city of the Beeroth
or "Cisterns" is probably Beyrout.

The Mohar is now carried to Phoenicia. Gebal,
Beyrout, Sidon, and Sarepta, are named one after the
other, as the traveller is supposed to be journeying
from north to south. The "goddess" of Gebal was
Baaltis, so often referred to in the letters of Rib-
Hadad, who calls her "the mistress of Gebal." In
saying, however, that the name of the city meant
" Hidden," the writer has been misled by the Egyptian
mispronunciation of it. It became Kapuna in the
mouths of his countrymen, and since kapu in
Egyptian signified "hidden mystery," he jumped to
the conclusion that such was also the etymology of
the Phoenician word. In the "fords of the land of
Nazana" we must recognize the river Litany, which

188 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

flows into the sea between Sarepta and Tyre. At all
events, Authu or Usu, the next city mentioned, is
associated with Tyre both in the tablets of Tel el-
Amarna and in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings.
It seems to have been the Palaetyros or "Older Tyre "
of classical tradition, which stood on the mainland
opposite the more famous insular Tyre. Phoenician
tradition ascribes its foundation to Usoos, the off-
spring of the mountains of Kasios and Lebanon, and
brother of Memrumus, "the exalted," and Hysoura-
nois, "the lord of heaven," who was the first to invent
a clothing of skins, and to sail upon the water in boats,
and who had taught mankind to adore the fire and the
winds, and to set up two pillars of stone in honour of
the deity. From Usu the Mohar is naturally taken to
the island rock of Tyre.

Next comes a name which it is difficult to identify.
All that is clear is that between Zar or Tyre and
Zair'aun there is some connection both of name and
locality. Perhaps Dr. Brugsch is right in thinking
that in the next sentence there is a play upon the
Hebrew word zir'dh, "hornet," which seems to have
the same root as Zair'aun. It may be that Zair'aun
is the ancient city south of Tyre whose ruins are now
called Umm el-'Amud, and whose older name is said
to have been Turan. Unfortunately the name of the
next place referred to in the Mohar's travels is doubt-
ful; if it is Pa-'A(y)ina, "the Spring," we could
identify it with the modern Ras el-'Ain, "the Head
of the Spring." This is on the road to Zib, the
ancient Achshaph or Ekdippa.

"The mountain of User" reminds us curiously of
the tribe of Asher, whose territory included the moun-
tain-range which rose up behind the Phoenician coast.

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN i%

But it may denote Mount Carmel, whose "crest" faces
the traveller as he makes his way southward from
Tyre and Zib. In any case the allusion to it brings
to the writer's mind another mountain in the same
neighbourhood, the summit of which similarly towers
into the sky. This is "the mountain of Shechem,"
either Ebal or Gerizim, each of which is nearly 3000
feet above the level of the sea. It is the first mention
that we have of Shechem outside the pages of the
Old Testament.

Shechem, however, did not lie in the path of the
Mohar, and the reference to its mountain is made
parenthetically only. We are therefore carried on to
Hazor, which afterwards became a city of Naphtali,
and of which we hear in the letters of Tel el-Amarna.
From Hazor the road ran northwards to Hamath, the
Hamah of to-day. Hazor lay not far to the westward
of Adamim, which the geographical lists of Thothmes
III. place between the Sea of Galilee and the Kishon,
and which is doubtless the Adami of Naphtali (Josh.
xix. 33). Here the tour of the Mohar comes to an
abrupt close. After this the writer contents himself
with naming a number of Syrian cities without regard
to their geographical position. He is anxious merely
to show off his knowledge of Canaanitish geography ;
perhaps also to insinuate doubts as to the extent of
his correspondent's travels.

Takhis, the Thahash of Genesis (xxii. 24), was, as
we have seen, in the land of the Amorites, not very far
distant from Kadesh on the Orontes. Kafir-Marona,
"the village of Marona," may have been in the same
direction. The second element in the name is met
with elsewhere in Palestine. Thus one of Joshua's
antagonists was the king of Shimron-meron (Josh.

190 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

xii. 20), and the Assyrian inscriptions tell us of a
town called Samsi-muruna. Tamnah was not an un-
common name. We hear of a Tamnah or Timnah in
Judah (Josh. xv. 57), and of another in Mount
Ephraim (Josh. xix. 50). Dapul may be the Tubuliya
of the letters of Rib-Hadad, Azai, "the outlet," seems
to have been near a pass, while Har-nammata, "the
mountain of Nammata," is called Har-nam by Ramses
III., who associates it with Lebanoth and Hebron.
The two next names, Kirjath-Anab and Beth-Sopher,
are of peculiar interest, since they contain the first
mention that has come down to us of Kirjath-Sepher,
the literary centre of the Canaanites in the south of
Palestine, which was captured and destroyed by
Othniel the Kenizzite. In the Old Testament (Josh.
xv. 49, 50) Kirjath-Sannah or Kirjath-Sepher and
Anab are coupled together just as Kirjath-Anab and
Beth-Sopher are by the Egyptian scribe, and it is
therefore evident that he has interchanged the place
of the equivalent terms Kirjath, "city," and Beth,
"house." But his spelling of the second name shows
us how it ought to be punctuated and read in the Old
Testament. It was not Kirjath-Sepher, "the city of
book(s)," but Kirjath-Sopher, "the city of scribe(s),"
and Dr. W. Max Miiller has pointed out that the
determinative of "writing" has been attached to the
word Sopher, showing that the writer was fully
acquainted with its meaning. Kirjath-Sannah, "the
city of instruction," as it was also called, was but
another way of emphasizing the fact that here was the
site of a library and school such as existed in the
towns of Babylonia and Assyria. Both names, how-
ever, Kirjath-Sopher and Kirjath-Sannah, were de-
scriptive rather than original ; its proper designation

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 191

seems to have been Debir, "the sanctuary," the temple
wherein its library was established, and which has
caused the Egyptian author to call it a "Beth," or
"temple," instead of a "Kirjath," or "city."

Like Anab and Kirjath-Sopher, Adullam and Zidi-
puta were also in southern Canaan. It was in the cave
of Adullam that David took refuge from the pursuit
of Saul, and we learn from Shishak that Zidiputa — or
Zadiputh-el, as he calls it — was in the south of Judah.
From hence we are suddenly transported to the
northern part of Syria, and the Mohar is asked if he
knows anything about Khalza in the land of Aupa.
Khalza is an Assyrian word signifying "Fortress,"
and Aupa, the Ubi of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, was
not far from Aleppo. The allusion to the "bull" is
obscure.

Then once more we are summoned back to Pales-
tine. In the annals of Thothmes III. we are told that
"the brook of Qina " was to the south of Megiddo, so
that the name of the district has probably survived
in that of "Cana of Galilee." Rehob may be Rehob
in Asher (Josh. xix. 28), which was near Kanah,
though the name is so common in Syria as to make
any identification uncertain. Beth-sha-el, on the con-
trary, is Beth-el. We first meet with the name in the
geographical lists of Thothmes III., and the fact that
it is Babylonian in form, Bit-sa-ili being the Baby-
lonian equivalent of the Hebrew Beth-el, is one of
many proofs that the lists were compiled from a cunei-
form original. The name of Beth-sha-el or Beth-el
calls up that of Tarqa-el, which contains the name of
the Hittite god Tarqu. But where Tarqa-el was
situated it is impossible to say.

Towards the end of the book reference is made to

tgz PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

certain places which lay on the road between Egypt
and Canaan. Rapih is the Raphia of classical geo-
graphy, the Rapikh of the Assyrian inscriptions,
where two broken columns now mark the boundary
between Egypt and Turkey. Rehoburta is probably
the Rehoboth where the herdsmen of Isaac dug a
well before the patriarch moved to Beer-sheba (Gen.
xxvi. 22), while in the lake of Nakhai we may have
the Sirbonian lake of classical celebrity.

There still remain two allusions in the papyrus
which must not be passed over in silence. One is the
allusion to "Qazairdai, the lord of Asel," the famous
slayer of lions. We know nothing further about this
Nimrod of Syria, but Professor Maspero is perhaps
right in believing that Asel ought to be written Alsa,
and that the country meant was the kingdom of Ala-
siya, which lay on the southern coast of Cilicia.
Several letters from the king of Alasiya are preserved
in the Tel el-Amarna collection, and we gather from
them that his possessions extended across the Orontes
from the desert to the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian
papyri tell us that mares were imported into Egypt
from Alasiya as well as two different kinds of liquor.
In the age of Samuel and Saul Alasiya was governed
by a queen.

The second allusion is to the ironsmith in Canaan.
It is clear that there were many of them, and that it
was to the worker in iron and not to the worker in
bronze that the traveller naturally turned when his
chariot needed mending. Even the word that is em-
ployed to denote the metal is the Canaanitish barzel,
which has been adopted under the form of parzal.
Nothing could show more plainly how characteristic
of Canaan the trade of the ironsmith must have been,

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 193

and how largely the use of iron must have there super-
seded the use of bronze. The fact is in accordance
with the references in the annate of Thothmes III. to
the iron that was received by him from Syria; it is
also in accordance with the statements of the Bible,
where we read of the "chariots of iron " in which the
Canaanites rode to war. Indeed there seems to have
been a special class of wandering ironsmiths in Pales-
tine, like the wandering ironsmiths of mediaeval
Europe, who jealously guarded the secrets of their
trade, and formed not only a peculiar caste, but even
a peculiar race. The word Kain means "a smith,"
and the nomad Kenites of whom we read in the Old
Testament were simply the nomad race of "smiths,"
whose home was the tent or cavern. Hence it was
that while they were not Israelites, they were just as
little Canaanites, and hence it was, too, that the Philis-
tines were able to deprive the Israelites of the services
of a smith (1 Sam. xiii. 19). All that was necessary
was to prevent the Kenites from settling within Israel-
itish territory. There was no Israelite who knew the
secrets of the profession and could take their place,
and the Canaanites who lived under Israelitish pro-
tection were equally ignorant of the ironsmith's art.
Though the ironsmith had made himself a home in
Canaan he never identified himself with its inhabit-
ants. The Kenites remained a separate people, and
could consequently be classed as such by the side of
the Hivites, or "villagers," and the Perizzites, or
"fellahin."

If the Travels of a Mohar are a guide-book to the
geography of Palestine in the age of the nineteenth
Egyptian dynasty, the lists of places conquered by
Thothmes III., and engraved by his orders on the

N

i94 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

walls of his temple at Karnak, are a sort of atlas of
Canaanite geography in the age of the eighteenth
dynasty. The name of each locality is enclosed in a
cartouche and surmounted by the head and shoulders
of a Canaanitish captive. The hair and eyes of the
figures are painted black, or rather dark purple, while
the skin is alternately red and yellow. The yellow
represents the olive ""tint of the Mediterranean popula-
tion, the red denotes the effects of sunburn. An exam-
ination of the names contained in the cartouches makes
it clear that they have been derived from the memor-
anda made by the scribes who accompanied the army
of the Pharaoh in its campaigns. Sometimes the
same name is repeated twice, and not always in the
same form. We may conclude, therefore, that the
memoranda had not always been made by the same
reporter, and that the compiler of the lists drew his
materials from different sources. It is further clear
that the memoranda had been noted down in the
cuneiform characters of Babylonia and not in the
hieroglyphics of Egypt. Thus, as we have seen, the
name of Beth-el is transcribed from its Babylonian
form of Bit-sa-ili, the Assyrian equivalent of the
Hebrew Beth-el.

The names have been copied from the memoranda
of the scribes in the order in which they occurred, and
without any regard to their relative importance. While,
therefore, insignificant villages are often noted, the
names of important cities are sometimes passed over.
Descriptive epithets, moreover, like abel "meadow,"
arets "land," har "mountains," 'emeq "valley." 'en
"spring," are frequently treated as if they were local
names, and occupy separate cartouches. We must
not, consequently, expect to find in the lists any ex-

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 195

haustive catalogue of Palestinian towns or even of
the leading cities. They mark only the lines of march
taken by the army of Thothmes or by his scouts and
messengers.

Besides the Canaanitish lists there are also long lists
of localities conquered by the Pharaoh in Northern
Syria. With these, however, we have nothing to do.
It is to the places in Canaan that our attention must
at present be confined. They are said to be situated
in the country of the Upper Lotan, or, as another list
gives it, in the country of the Fenkhu. In the time
of Thothmes III., accordingly, the land of the Upper
Lotan and the land of the Fenkhu were synonymous
terms, and alike denoted what we now call Palestine.
In the word Fenkhu it is difficult not to see the origin
of the Greek Phcenix or "Phoenician."

The lists begin with Kadesh, on the Orontes, the
head of the confederacy, the defeat of which laid
Canaan at the feet of the Pharaoh. Then comes
Megiddo, where the decisive battle took place, and
the forces of the king of Kadesh were overthrown.
Next we have Khazi, mentioned also in the Tel el-
Amarna tablets, from which we learn that it was in
the hill-country south of Megiddo. It may be the Gaza
of 1 Chronicles (vii. 28), which was supplanted by
Shechem in Israelitish days. Kitsuna, the Kuddasuna
of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, follows : where it stood
we do not know. The next name, "the Spring of
Shiu," is equally impossible to identify. The sixth
name, however, is Tubikhu, about which the cunei-
form tablets of Tel el-Amarna have told us a good
deal, and which seems to be the Tibhath of 1 Chron-
icles (xviii. 8). It was in Ccele-Syria, like Kamta, the
Kumidi of the tablets, which follows in one list,
n 2

196 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

though its place is taken by the unknown Bami in
another. After this we have the names of Tuthina
(perhaps Dothan), Lebana, and Kirjath-niznau, fol-
lowed by Marum or Merom the modern Meirom, by
Tamasqu or Damascus, by the Abel of Atar, and by
Hamath. Aqidu, the seventeenth name, is unknown,
but Mr. Tomkins is probably right in thinking that
the next name, that of Shemnau, must be identified
with the Shimron of Joshua (xix. 15), where the Sep-
tuagint reads Symeon. That this reading is correct is
shown by the fact that in the days of Josephus and
the Talmud the place was called Simonias, while the
modern name is Semunieh. The tablets of Tel el-
Amarna make it Samkhuna.

Six unknown names come next, the first of which
is a Beeroth, or "Wells." Then we have Mesekh,
"the place of unction," called Musikhuna in the Tel
el-Amarna correspondence, Qana and 'Arna. Both
Qana and 'Arna appear in the account of the battle
before Megiddo, and must have been in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of that city. One of the affluents
of the Kishon flowed past Qana, while 'Arna was
hidden in a defile. It was there that the tent of
Thothmes was pitched two days before the great
battle. The brook of Qana seems to have been the
river Qanah of to-day, and 'Arna may be read 'Aluna.

We are now transported to the eastern bank of the
Jordan, to 'Astartu in the land of Bashan, the Ash-
taroth-Karnaim of Genesis, the Tel 'Ashtarah of
modern geography. With 'Astartu is coupled Anau-
repa, explained by Mr. Tomkins to be "On of the
Rephaim " (Gen. xiv. 5). At any rate it is clearly the
Raphon or Raphana of classical writers, the Er-Rafeh
of to-day. Next we have Maqata, called Makhed in

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 197

the First Book of Maccabees, and now known as
Mukatta; Lus or Lius, the Biblical Laish, which
under its later name of Dan became the northern limit
of the Israelitish kingdom; and Hazor, the strong-
hold of Jabin, whose king we hear of in the Tel el-
Amarna tablets. Then come Pahil or Pella, east of
the Jordan, famous in the annals of early Christianity ;
Kennartu, the Chinneroth of the Old Testament (Josh.
xi. 2, 1 Kings xv. 20), from which the Sea of Galilee
took one of its names; Shemna, the site of which is
uncertain ; and Atmam, the Adami of Joshua (xix. 33).
These are followed by Qasuna, in which we find the
Kishion of Issachar (Josh. xix. 20) ; Shanam or
Shunem, now Solam, north of Jezreel ; Mash-al, the
Misheal of Scripture; and Aksap or Ekdippa on the
Phoenician coast. Then, after a name which cannot be
identified, we read those of Ta'anak, the Ta'anach of
the Bible, the Ta'anuk of to-day ; Ible'am, near which
Ahaziah of Judah was slain by the servants of Jehu;
Gantu-Asna, "the garden of Asnah " ; Lot-melech,
"Lot of the king"; 'Aina, "the Spring"; and 'Aak,
or Acre. From Acre we are taken along the coast
southward to Rosh Kadesh, "the sacred headland"
of Carmel, whose name follows immediately under the
form of Karimna. Next we have Beer, "the Well,"
Shemesh-Atum, and Anakhertu. Anakhertu is the
Anaharath of Joshua (xix. 19), which belonged to the
tribe of Issachar.

Of Shemesh-Atum we hear again in one of the
inscriptions of Amenophis III. A revolt had broken
out in the district of the Lebanon, and the king accord-
ingly marched into Canaan to suppress it. Shemesh-
Atum was the first city to feel the effects of his anger,
and he carried away from it eighteen prisoners and

198 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

thirteen oxen. The name of the town shows that it
was dedicated to the Sun-god. In Hebrew it would
appear as Shemesh-Edom, and an Egyptian papyrus,
now at Ley den, informs us that Atum or Edom was
the wife of Resheph the Canaanitish god of fire and
lightning. In Shemesh-Atum or Shemesh-Edom we
therefore have a compound name signifying that the
Shemesh or Sun-god denoted by it was not the male
divinity of the customary worship, but the Sun-goddess
Edom. In Israelitish times the second element in the
compound seems to have been dropped; at all events
it is probable that Shemesh-Atum was the Beth-
Shemesh of the Old Testament (Josh. xix. 22), which
is mentioned along with Anaharath as in the borders
of Issachar.

After Anaharath come two unknown Ophrahs; then
Khasbu and Tasult, called Khasabu and Tusulti in
the Tel el-Amarna letters; then Negebu, perhaps the
Nekeb of Galilee (Josh. xix. 33), Ashushkhen, Anam,
and Yurza. Yurza is now represented by the ruins of
Yerza, south-eastward of Ta'anach, and there are
letters from its governor in the Tel el-Amarna col-
lection. Its name is followed by those of Makhsa,
Yapu or Joppa, and "the country of Gantu " or Gath.
Next we have Luthen or Ruthen, which is possibly
Lydda, Ono, Apuqen, Suka or Socho, and Yahem.
Among the cartouches that follow we read the names
of a Migdol, of Shebtuna, the modern Shebtin, of
Naun which reminds us of the name of Joshua's father,
and of Haditha, now Haditheh, five miles to the west
of Shebtin.

The list has thus led us to the foot of Mount
Ephraim, and it is not surprising that the next name
should be that of the Har or "Mountain " itself. This

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 199

is followed by a name which is full of interest, for it
reads Joseph-el or "Joseph-god." How the name of
Joseph came to be attached in the time of Thothmes
to the mountainous region in which "the House of
Joseph " afterwards established itself is hard to ex-
plain ; we must remember, however, as has been stated
in a former chapter, that according to the Chronicler
(1 Chron. vii. 21, 22), already in the lifetime of
Ephraim his sons were slain by the men of Gath,
"because they came down to take away their cattle."1
Three names further on we find another compound
with el, Har-el, "the mount of God." In Ezek. xliii.
15 Har-el is used to denote the "altar" which should
stand in the temple on Mount Moriah, and Mount
Moriah is itself called "the Mount of the Lord" in
the Book of Genesis (xxii. 14). It may be, therefore,
that in the Har-el of the Egyptian list we have the
name of the mountain whereon the temple of Solomon
was afterwards to be built. However this may be, the
names which follow it show that we are in the neigh-
bourhood of Jerusalem. One after the other come
Lebau, Na'mana or Na'amah (Josh. xv. 41), Meromim
"the heights," 'Ani "the two springs," Rehob, Ekron,
Hekalim "the palaces," the Abel or "meadow" of
Autar'a, the Abel, the Gantau or "gardens," the
Maqerput or "tilled ground," and the 'Aina or
"Spring" of Carmel, which corresponds with the
Gath-Carmel of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, the Carmel
of Judah of the Old Testament. Then we have Beth-

1 Dr. Pinches was the first to discover in early Babylonian
contracts of the age of Amraphel the name of Yasupu-ilu or Joseph-
el, as well as that of Yakub-ilu or Jacob-el and Yakub. The
discovery is of high importance when we remember that Abraham
migrated from Ur of the Chaldees, and adds another to the many
debts of gratitude due to Dr. Pinches from Biblical students.

200 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

Ya, a name which reminds us of that of "Bithia, the
daughter of Pharaoh," whom Mered, the descendant
of Caleb, took to wife, and whose stepson was Yered,
"the father of Gedor " (i Chron. iv. 18). Beth-Ya
is followed by Tapun, which was fortified by the
Greeks after the death of Judas Maccabaeus (i Mace,
ix. 50), by the Abel of Yertu or Yered, perhaps
the district of the Jordan, by Halkal, and by Jacob-el,
a name formed in the same way as that of Joseph-el.
We may see in it an evidence that the memory of
the patriarch was kept alive in the south of Palestine.
The next two names are unknown, but they are fol-
lowed by Rabatu or Rabbah of Judah, Magharatu, the
Ma'arath of Joshua (xv. 59), 'Emequ, "the valley " of
Hebron, Sirta and Bartu, the Bor has-Sirah, or "Well
of Sirah " of 2 Samuel (iii. 26). Then come Beth-sa-el
or Beth-el in its Babylonian dress; Beth-Anta or Beth-
Anath (Josh. xv. 59), where the Babylonian goddess
Anatu was worshipped; Helkath (2 Sam. ii. 16); the
Spring of Qan'am; Gibeah of Judah (2 Sam. vi.
3, 4; see Josh, xviii. 28); Zelah (Josh, xviii. 28), called
Zilu by Ebed-Kheba of Jerusalem; and Zafta, the
Biblical Zephath (Judges i. 17). The last three names
in the catalogue — Barqna, Hum, and Aktomes — have
left no traces in Scriptural or classical geography.

The geographical lists of Thothmes III. served as a
model for the Pharaohs who came after him. They
also adorned the walls of their temples with the names
of the places they had captured in Palestine, in
Northern Syria, and in the Soudan, and when a large
space had to be filled the sculptor was not careful to
insert in it only the names of such foreign towns as
had been actually conquered. The older lists were
drawn upon, and the names which had appeared in

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 201

them were appropriated by the later king, sometimes
in grotesquely misspelt forms. The climax of such
empty claims to conquests which had never been made
was reached at Kom Ombo, where Ptolemy Lathyrus,
a prince who, instead of gaining fresh territory, lost
what he had inherited, is credited with the subjugation
of numerous nations and races, many of whom, like
the Hittites, had long before vanished from the page
of history. The last of the Pharaohs whose geo-
graphical list really represents his successes in Pales-
tine was Shishak, the opponent of Rehoboam and the
founder of the twenty-second dynasty. The catalogue
of places engraved on the wall of the shrine he built
at Karnak is a genuine and authentic record.

So, too, are the lists given by the kings who imme-
diately followed Thothmes III., Amenophis III. of
the eighteenth dynasty, Seti I. and Ramses II. of the
nineteenth, and Ramses III. of the twentieth. It is
true that in some cases the list of one Pharaoh has
been slavishly copied by another, but it is also true
that these Pharaohs actually overran and subjugated
the countries to which the lists belong. Of this we
have independent testimony.

At one time it was the fashion to throw doubt on
the alleged conquests of Ramses II. in Western Asia.
This was the natural reaction from the older belief,
inherited from the Greek writers of antiquity, that
Ramses II. was a universal conqueror who had carried
his arms into Europe, and even to the confines of the
Caucasus. With the overthrow of this belief came a
disbelief in his having been a conqueror at all. The
disbelief was encouraged by the boastful vanity of his
inscriptions, as well as by the absence in them of any
details as to his later Syrian wars.

202 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

But we now know that such scepticism was over-
hasty. It was like the scepticism which refused to
admit that Canaan had been made an Egyptian pro-
vince by Thothmes III., and which needed the testi-
mony of the Tel el-Amarna tablets before it could be
removed. As a matter of fact, Egyptian authority was
re-established throughout Palestine and even on the
eastern bank of the Jordan during the reign of
Ramses II., and the conquests of the Pharaoh in
Northern Syria were real and not imaginary. Such
has been the result of the discoveries of the last three
or four years.

We have no reason to doubt that the campaigns of
Ramses III. in Asia were equally historical. The
great confederacy of northern barbarians and Asiatic
invaders which had poured down upon Egypt had
been utterly annihilated; the Egyptian army was
flushed with victory, and Syria, overrun as it had been
by the invaders from the north, was in no position to
resist a fresh attack. Moreover, the safety of Egypt
required that Ramses should follow up the destruction
of his assailants by carrying the war into Asia. But
it is noticeable that the places he claims to have con-
quered, whether in Canaan or further north, lay along
the lines of two high-roads, and that the names of the
great towns even on these high-roads are for the most
part conspicuously absent. The names, however, are
practically those already enumerated by Ramses II.,
and they occur in the same order. But the list given
by Ramses III. could not have been copied from the
older list of Ramses II. for a very sufficient reason.
In some instances the names as given by the earlier
monarch are misspelt, letters having been omitted in
them or wrong letters having been written in place of

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 203

the right ones, while in the list of Ramses III. the
same names are correctly written.

Seti I., the father of Ramses II., seems to have been
too fully engaged in his wars in Northern Syria, and
in securing the road along the coast of the Mediter-
ranean, to attempt the re-conquest of Palestine. At
Ournah, however, we find the names of 'Aka, or Acre,
Zamith, Pella, Beth-el (Beth-sha-il), Inuam, Kimham
(Jer. xli. 17), Kamdu, Tyre, Usu, Beth-Anath, and
Carmel among those of the cities he had vanquished,
but there is no trace of any occupation of Southern
Canaan. That seems to have come later with the
beginning of his son's reign.

On the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes there are
pictures of the storming and capture of the Palestinian
cities. Most of them are now destroyed, but we can
still read the names of Askhelon, of Salem, or Jeru-
salem, of Beth-Anath and Qarbu[tu], of Dapul in the
land of the Amorites, of Merom, of Damascus, and of
Inuam. Elsewhere we have mention of Yurza and
Socho, while at Karnak there are two geographical
lists which mark two of the lines of march taken by
the troops of Ramses II. The first list contains the
following names: (1) the district of Salem; (2) the
district of Rethpana; (3) the country of the Jordan;
(4) Khilz ; (5) Karhu ; (6) Uru ; (7) Abel ; (8) Carmel ;
(9) the upper district of Tabara or Debir; (10) Shim-
shon; and (11) Erez Hadashta, "the new land." In
the second list we read: (1) Rosh Kadesh, or Mount
Carmel; (2) Inzat; (3) Maghar; (4) Rehuza; (5)
Saabata; (6) Gaza; (7) the district of Sala' ; (8) the
district of Zasr; (9) Jacob-el; and (10) the land of
Akrith, the Ugarit of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

We have already seen that long before the time

2o4 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

of Ramses II. Jerusalem was an important city and
fortress, the capital of a territory of some size, known
by the name of Uru-Salim, "the city of the god of
salvation." "The city of Salem" could easily be
abbreviated into "Salem" only; and it is accordingly
Salem which alone is used in the fourteenth chapter
of Genesis as well as in the inscriptions of Ramses II.
and Ramses III. The name of Rethpana, which
follows that of Salem, is faultily written in the list of
Ramses II., and it is from that of Ramses III. that
we have to recover its true form. Ramses III., more-
over, tells us that Rethpana was a lake, and since its
name comes between those of Jerusalem and the
Jordan it must represent the Dead Sea. The Canaan-
ite form of Rethpana would be Reshpon, a derivative
from the name of Resheph, the god of fire and light-
ning, whose name is preserved in that of the town
Arstif, and whose "children" were the sparks (Job.
v. 7). The name was appropriate to a region which
was believed to have been smitten with a tempest of
flames, and of which we are told that "the Lord rained
upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire."
Khilz, the fourth name in the list, is probably the
Babylonian Khalsu, or "fortress." At all events it
was the first town on the eastern side of the Jordan,
and it may well therefore have guarded the ford across
the river. Karhu is the Korkha of the Moabite Stone,
perhaps the modern Kerak, which was the capital of
Moab in the age of Ahab, and Uru is the Babylonian
form of the Moabite Ar, or "city," of which we read
in the Book of Numbers (xxi. 28). The land of
" Moab " itself is one of the countries which Ramses
claims to have subdued. The Carmel mentioned in
the list is Carmel of Judah, not the more famous

EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN 205

Carmel on the coast. As for Tabara or Debir, it will
be that ancient seat of Canaanite learning and litera-
ture, called Kirjath-Sepher and Debir in the Old
Testament, the site of which is unfortunately still un-
known. It must have lain, however, between Carmel
and Shimshon, "the city of the Sun-god," with which
it is probable that the Biblical Ir-Shemesh should be
identified (Josh. xix. 41). Erez Hadashta, "the New
Land," is called Hadashah in the Book of Joshua
(xv. 37), where it is included among the possessions
of Judah.

The second list, instead of taking us through Judah
and Moab, leads us southward along the coast from
Mount Carmel. Maghar is termed by Ramses III.
"the spring of the Maghar," and is the Magoras or
river of Beyrout of classical geography. The river
took its name from the maghdrat or "caves" past
which it runs, and of which we have already heard
in the Travels of a Mohar. The two next names which
represent places on the coast to the north of Gaza are
quite unknown, but Sala', which is written Selakh by
Ramses III. (from a cuneiform original), is possibly
the rock-city Sela (2 Kings xiv. 7), better known to
us as Petra. Of Jacob-el we have already had occasion
to speak.

It is in the ruined temple of Medinet Habu that
Ramses III. has recorded his victories and inscribed
the names of the peoples and cities he had overcome.
We gather from the latter that his armies had followed
the roads already traversed by Ramses II., had
marched through the south of Palestine into Moab,
and had made their way along the seacoast into
Northern Syria. One after the other we read the
names of Hir-nam or Har-nam, called Har-Nammata

2o6 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

in the Mohar's Travels, of Lebanoth, of Beth-Anath
and Qarbutu (Josh. xv. 59), of Carmin, "the vine-
yards," and Shabuduna or Shebtin, of Mashabir ( ?),
of Hebron and its '£n or "Spring," of the "district of
Libnah," of 'Aphekah and 'Abakhi (Josh. xv. 53), of
Migdal — doubtless the Migdal-Gad of Joshua (xv. 53)
— and Qarzak, of Carmel of Judah and the Upper Dis-
trict of Debir, of Shimshon and Erez Hadasth, of the
district of Salem or Jerusalem and the "Lake of Reth-
pana," of the Jordan, of Khilz the fortress, of Korkha
and of Uru. A second list gives us the line of march along
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. First we have
'Akata, perhaps Joktheel in Judah (Josh. xv. 38), then
Karka and [Zidijputh, Abel and the district of Sela',
the district of Zasr and Jacob-el, Rehuza, Saaba and
Gaza, Rosh-Kadesh, Inzath and the "Spring," Lui-el,
which we might also read Levi-el, Bur, "the Cistern,"
Kamdu, "Qubur the great," Iha, Tur, and finally
Sannur, the Saniru of the Assyrian texts, the Shenir
of the Old Testament (Deut. iii. 9). This brings us to
Mount Hermon and the land of the Amorites, so that
it is not surprising to find after two more names that
of Hamath.

One point about this list is very noticeable. None
of the great Phoenician cities of the coast are men-
tioned in it. Acre, Ekdippa, Tyre, Sidon, and Bey-
rout are all conspicuous by their absence. Even Joppa
is unnamed. After Gaza we have only descriptive
epithets like "the Spring" and "the Cistern," or the
names of otherwise unknown villages. With Kamdu
in Ccele-Syria the catalogue of cities begins afresh.

It is plain that the northern campaign of the
Pharaoh was little better than a raid. No attempt was
made to capture the cities of the coast, and re-establish

Egyptian travellers in canaan 20?

in them the Egyptian power. The Egyptian army
passed them by without any effort to reduce them.
Possibly the Philistines had already settled on the
coast, and had shown themselves too strong to be
meddled with ; possibly the Egyptian fleet was acting
in concert with the troops on land, and Ramses cared
only to lead his forces to some spot on the north
Syrian coast, from whence, if necessary, the ships
could convey them home. Whatever may have been
the reason, the fact remains that Gaza alone of the
cities of the Canaanitish coast fell into the hands of
the Pharaoh. It was only in the extreme south, in
what was so soon afterwards to become the territory
of Judah, that he overran the country and occupied
the large towns.

With the lists of Ramses III. our knowledge of the
geography of Patriarchal Palestine is brought to a
close. Henceforward we have to do with the Canaan
of Israelitish conquest and settlement. The records
of the Old Testament contain a far richer store of
geographical names than we can ever hope to glean
from the monuments of Egypt. But the latter show
how little change, after all, was effected by the Israel-
itish conquest in the local nomenclature of the country.
A few cities disappeared like Kirjath-Sepher, but on
the whole not only the cities, but even the villages, of
pre-Israelitish Canaan survived under their old names.
When we compare the names of the towns and villages
of Judah enumerated in the Book of Joshua with the
geographical lists of a Thothmes or a Ramses, we
cannot but be struck by the coincidences between
them. The occurrence of a name like Hadashah,
"the New (Land)," in both cannot be the result of
chance. It adds one more to the many arguments in

2o8 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

favour of the antiquity of the Book of Joshua, or at
all events of the materials of which it consists. Geo-
graphy, at all events, gives no countenance to the
theory which sees in the book a fabrication of later
date. Even the leading cities of the Israelitish period
are for the most part already the leading cities of the
earlier Palestine. The future capital of David, for
example, was already called Jerusalem long before
the birth of Moses, and already occupied a foremost
place among the kingdoms of Canaan.

CHAPTER VI

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION

We have already learned from the annals of
Thothmes III. how high was the state of civilization
and culture among the merchant princes of Canaan in
the age of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. Artistic-
ally finished vases of gold and silver, rich bronzes,
furniture carved out of ebony and cedar, and inlaid
with ivory and precious stones — such were some of
the manufactures of the land of Palestine. Iron was
excavated from its hills and wrought into armour,
into chariots, and into weapons of war ; while beauti-
fully shaped vessels of variegated glass were manu-
factured on the coast. The amber beads found at
Lachish point to a trade with the distant Baltic, and
it is possible that there may be truth, after all, in the
old belief that the Phoenicians obtained their tin from
the isles of Britain. The mines of Cyprus, indeed,
yielded abundance of copper, but, so far as we know,
there were only two parts of the world from which
the nations of Western Asia and the Eastern Mediter-
ranean could have procured the vast amount of tin
needed in the Bronze Age — the Malayan Peninsula
and Cornwall. The Malayan Peninsula is out of the
question — there are no traces of any commercial inter-
course so far to the East ; and it would seem, therefore,
that we must look to Cornwall for the source of the
o 209

210 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

tin. If so the trade would probably have been over-
land, like the amber trade from the Baltic.

Canaan was marked out by nature to be a land of
merchants. Its long line of coast fronted the semi-
barbarous populations of Asia Minor, of the ^gean,
and of the northern shores of Africa, while the sea
furnished it with the purple dye of the murex. The
country itself formed the high-road and link between
the great kingdoms of the Euphrates and the Nile.
It was here that the two civilizations of Babylonia and
Egypt met and coalesced, and it was inevitable that
the Canaanites, who possessed all the energy and
adaptive quickness of a commercial race, should
absorb and combine the elements of both. There was
little except this combination that was original in
Canaanitish art, but when once the materials were
given, the people of Palestine knew how to work them
up into new and graceful forms, and adapt them
practically to the needs of the foreign world.

If we would realize the change brought about by
this contact of Canaan with the culture of the stranger,
we must turn to the rude figures carved upon the rocks
in some of the valleys of Phoenicia. Near Tyre, for
example, in the Wadi el-Qana we may still see some
of these primitive sculptures, in which it is difficult
even to recognize the human form. Equally barbar-
ous in style are the early seals and cylinders made in
imitation of those of Babylonia. It seems at first sight
impossible to believe that such grotesque and child-
like beginnings should have ended in the exquisite
art of the age of Thothmes III.

At that period, however, Canaan already had behind
it a long civilized past. The country was filled with
schools and libraries, with richly-furnished palaces,

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 211

and the workshops of the artisans. The cities on the
coast had their fleets partly of merchantmen, partly of
warships, and an active trade was carried on with all
parts of the known world. The result was that the
wealth of Palestine was enormous ; the amount carried
away by Thothmes is alone sufficient to prove it.
Apart from the natural productions of the country —
corn, wine, and oil, or the slaves which it had to
furnish — immense quantities of gold, silver, and
precious stones, sometimes in their native state, some-
times manufactured into artistic forms, were trans-
ported into Egypt. And in spite of this drain upon
its resources, the supply seems never to have failed.

The reciprocal influence of the civilizations of
Canaan and Egypt one upon the other, in the days
when Canaan was an Egyptian province, is reflected
in the languages of the two countries. On the one
hand the Canaanite borrowed from Egypt words like
tebah "ark," hin "a measure," and ebyon "poor,"
while Canaan in return copiously enriched the vocabu-
lary of its conquerors. As the Travels of a Mohar
have shown us, under the nineteenth dynasty there
was a mania for using Canaanitish words and phrases,
similar to that which has more than once visited Eng-
lish society in respect to French. But before the rise
of the nineteenth dynasty the Egyptian lexicon was
already full of Semitic words. Frequently they de-
noted objects which had been imported from Syria.
Thus a "chariot " was called a merkabut, a "waggon "
being agolta; hurpu, "a sword," was the Cananitish
khereb, just as aspata, "a quiver," was ashpdh. The
Canaanitish kinnor, "a lyre," was similarly natural-
ized in Egypt, like the names of certain varieties of
"Syrian bread." The Egyptian words for "incense"
o 2

2i2 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

(qadamta), "oxen" (abiri), and "sea" (yum) were
taken from the same source, though it is possible that
the last-mentioned word, like qamhu, "wheat," had
been introduced from Syria in the earliest days of
Egyptian history. As might have been expected,
several kinds of sea-going vessels brought with them
their native names from the Phoenician coast.
Already in the time of the thirteenth dynasty the
larger ships were termed Kabanitu, or "Gebalite" we
read also of "boats " called Za, the Canaanite 7A, while
a transport was entitled qauil, the Phoenician gol.
The same name was imported into Greek under the
form of gaulos, and we are told that it signified "a
Phoenician vessel of rounded shape."

The language of Canaan was practically that which
we call Hebrew. Indeed Isaiah (xix. 18) speaks of the
two dialects as identical, and the so-called Phoenician
inscriptions that have been preserved to us show that
the differences between them were hardly appreciable.
There were differences, however; the Hebrew definite
article, for instance, is not found in the Phoenician
texts. But the differences are dialectical only, like the
differences which the discovery of the Moabite Stone
has shown to have existed between the languages of
Moab and Israel.

How the Israelites came to adopt "the language of
Canaan " is a question into which we cannot here
enter. There have been other examples of conquerors
who have abandoned the language of their forefathers
and adopted that of the conquered people. And it
must be remembered, on the one hand, that the an-
cestors of Israel had lived in Canaan, where they
would have learnt the language of the country, and,
on the other hand, that their original tongue was itself

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 213

a Semitic form of speech, as closely related to Hebrew
as French or Spanish is to Italian.

The Tel el-Amarna tablets have told us something
about the language of Canaan as it was spoken before
the days when the Israelites entered the land. Some
of the letters that were sent from Palestine contain
the Canaanite equivalents of certain Babylonian words
that occur in them. Like the Babylonian words, they
are written in cuneiform characters, and since these
denote syllables and not mere letters we know exactly
how the words were pronounced. It is an advantage
which is denied us by the Phoenician alphabet,
whether in the inscriptions of Phoenicia or in the
pages of the Old Testament, and we can thus obtain
a better idea of the pronunciation of the Canaanitish
language in the century before the Exodus than we
can of the Hebrew language in the age of Hezekiah.

Among the words which have been handed down to
us by the correspondents of the Pharaoh are maqani
"cattle," anay "a ship," siisi "a horse," of which the
Hebrew equivalents, according to the Masoretic
punctuation, are miqneh, oni, and sus. The king of
Jerusalem says anuki, "I," the Hebrew anochi, while
badiu, the Hebrew b'yado, and akharnnu, the Hebrew
akharono, are stated to signify "in his hand," and
"after him." "Dust" is gha.pa.ru, where the guttural
gh represents the Canaanitish ayyin ('); "stomach"
is batnu, the Hebrew beten; while kilubi, "a cage,"
corresponds with the Hebrew chelub, which is used
in the same sense by the prophet Jeremiah. Else-
where we find rusu, the Hebrew rosh, "a head," har,
"a mountain," samama "heaven," and mima "water,"
in Hebrew shdmayim and mayim, which we gather
from the cuneiform spelling have been wrongly

214 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

punctuated by the Masoretes, as well as khaya
"living," the Hebrew khai, and makhzu, "they have
smitten him," the Hebrew makhatsu.

It was the use of the definite article ha(n) which
mainly distinguished Hebrew and Phoenician or
Canaanite one from the other. And we have a curious
indication in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, that the same
distinction prevailed between the language of the
Canaanites and that of the Edomites, who, as we learn
from the Old Testament, were so closely related to
the Israelites. In the letter to the Pharaoh, in which
mention is made of the hostilities carried on by Edom
against the Egyptian territory, one of the Edomite
towns referred to is called Khinianabi. Transcribed
into Hebrew characters this would be 'En-han-nabi,
"the Spring of the Prophet." Here, therefore, the
Hebrew article makes its appearance, and that too in
the very form which it has in the language of Israel.
The fact is an interesting commentary on the brother-
hood of Jacob and Esau.

If the language of Canaan was influenced by that
of Egypt, still more was it influenced by that of Baby-
lonia. Long before Palestine became an Egyptian
province it had been a province of Babylonia. And
even when it was not actually subject to Babylonian
government it was under the dominion of Babylonian
culture. War and trade alike forced the Chaldaean
civilization upon "the land of the Amorites," and the
Canaanites were not slow to take advantage of it. The
cuneiform writing of Babylonia was adopted, and
therewith the language of Babylonia was taught and
learned in the schools and libraries which were estab-
lished in imitation of those of the Babylonians. Baby-
lonian literature was introduced into the West, and

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 215

the Canaanite youth became acquainted with the his-
tory and legends, the theology and mythology of the
dwellers on the Euphrates and Tigris.

Such literary contact naturally left its impress on
the language of Canaan. Words which the Semites
of Babylonia had borrowed from the older Sumerian
population of the country were handed on to the
peoples of Palestine. The "city" had been a Sume-
rian creation ; until brought under the influence of
Sumerian culture, the Semite had been contented to
live in tents. Indeed in Babylonian or Assyrian —
the language of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia
and Assyria — the word which signified "tent" was
adopted to express the idea of "city" when the tent
had been exchanged for city-life. In Canaan, on the
other hand, "the Sumerian word itself was adopted in
a Semitic form. 'Ir, 'at, or uru, "city," was originally
the Sumerian eri.

The Canaanitish hekdl, "a palace," again, came
from a Sumerian source. This was e-gal, or "great
house." But it had passed to the west through the
Semitic Babylonians, who had first borrowed the com-
pound word under the form of ekallu. Like the city,
the palace also was unknown to the primitive Semitic
nomads. It belonged to the civilization of which the
Sumerians of Chaldaea, with their agglutinative lan-
luage, were the pioneers.

The borrowing, however, was not altogether one-
sided. Palestine enriched the literary language of
Babylonia with certain words, though these do not
seem to have made their way into the language of the
people. Thus we find words like bin-bini, "grand-
son," and inu, "wine," recorded in the lexical tablets
of Babylonia and Assyria. Doubtless there were

2i6 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

writers on the banks of the Euphrates who were as
anxious to exhibit their knowledge of the language of
Canaan as were the Egyptian scribes of the nineteenth
dynasty, though their literary works have not yet
been discovered.

The adoption of the Babylonian system of writing
must have worked powerfully on the side of tincturing
the Canaanitish language with Babylonian words. In
the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is no sign
that any other system was known in the west. It is
true that the letters sent to the Pharaoh from Palestine
were written in the Babylonian language as well as in
the Babylonian script, but we have evidence that the
cuneiform characters were also used for the native
language of the country. M. de Clercq possesses two
seal-cylinders of the same date as the Tel el-Amarna
correspondence, on one of which is the cuneiform in-
scription— " Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon, the
crown of the gods," while on the other is "Anniy,
the son of Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon." On the
first, Hadad-sum is represented as standing with his
hands uplifted before the Egyptian god Set, while
behind him is the god Resheph with a helmet on his
head, a shield in one hand and a battle-axe in the
other. On the seal of Anniy, Set and Resheph again
make their appearance, but instead of the owner of
the cylinder it is the god Horus who stands between
them.

When the cuneiform syllabary was superseded in
Palestine by the so-called Phoenician alphabet we do
not know. The introduction of the new script was due
perhaps to the Hittite invasion, which separated the
Semites of the west from the Semites of the east.
The Hittite occupation of Carchemish blocked the

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 217

high-road of Babylonian trade to the Mediterranean,
and when the sacred city of Kadesh, on the Orontes,
fell into Hittite hands it was inevitable that Hittite
rather than Babylonian influence would henceforth
prevail in Canaan. However this may be, it seems
natural to suppose that the scribes of Zebulon referred
to in the Song of Deborah and Barak (Judges v. 14)
wrote in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet and not
in the cuneiform characters of Babylonia. As long,
indeed, as the old libraries remained open and access-
ible, with their stores of cuneiform literature, there
must have been some who could read them, but they
would have been rather the older inhabitants of the
country than the alien conquerors from the desert.
When the Moabite Stone was engraved, it is clear
from the forms of the letters that the Phoenician
alphabet had long been in use in the kingdom of
Mesha. The resemblance of these letters to those
found in the earliest of the Greek inscriptions makes
it equally clear that the introduction of the alphabet
into the islands of the ^Egean must have taken place
at no distant period frpm the age of the Moabite Stone.
Such an introduction, however, implies that the new
alphabet had already taken deep root among the mer-
chants of Canaan, and driven out before it the cum-
brous syllabary of Chaldaea. It was in this alphabet
that Hiram and Solomon corresponded together, and
it is probable that it was introduced for official pur-
poses in the time of David. In the Mosaic age, at all
events, the cuneiform characters were still used.

As we have already seen, the elements of Baby-
lonian art were quickly absorbed by the Canaanites.
The seal-cylinder was imitated, at first with but in-
different success, and such Babylonian ornamental

218 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

designs as the rosette, the sacred tree, and the winged
cherub were taken over and developed in a special
way. At times the combination with them of designs
borrowed from Egypt produced a new kind of artistic
ornament.

But it was in the realm of religion that the influence
of Babylonia was most powerful. Religion, especially
in the ancient world, was inextricably bound up with
its culture : it was impossible to adopt the one without
adopting a good deal of the other at the same time.
Moreover, the Semites of Babylonia and of Canaan
belonged to the same race, and that meant a com-
munity of inherited religious ideas. With both the
supreme object of worship was Baal or Bel, " the lord,"
who was but the S^un-god under a variety of names.
Each locality had its own special Baal : there were,
in fact, as many Baals, or Baalim, as there were names
and attributes for the Sun-god, and to the worshippers
in each locality the Baal adored there was the supreme
god. But the god resembled his worshipper who had
been made in his image; he was the father and head
of a family with a wife and son. The wife, it is true,
was but the colourless reflection of the god, often
indeed but the feminine Baalah, whom the Semitic
languages with their feminine gender required to
exist by the side of the masculine Baal. But this was
only in accordance with the Semitic conception of
woman as the lesser man, his servant rather than his
companion, his shadow rather than his helpmeet.

The existence of an independent goddess, unmarried
and possessing all the attributes of the god, was
contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the Semitic
mind. Nevertheless we find in Canaan an Ashtoreth,
whom the Greeks called Astarte, as well as a Baal.

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 219

The cuneiform inscriptions have given us an explana-
tion of the fact.

Ashtoreth came from Babylonia. There she was
known as Istar, the evening star. She had been one
of those Sumerian goddesses who, in accordance with
the Sumerian system, which placed the mother at the
head of the family, were on an equal footing with the
gods. She lay outside the circle of Semitic theology
with its divine family, over which the male Baal pre-
sided, and the position she occupied in later Baby-
lonian religion was due to the fusion between the
Sumerian and Semitic forms of faith, which took place
when the Semites became the chief element in Baby-
lonia. But Sumerian influence and memories were
too strong to allow of any transformation either in the
name or in the attributes of the goddess. She re-
mained Istar, without any feminine suffix, and it was
never forgotten that she was the evening star.

It was otherwise in the west. There Istar became
Ashtoreth with the feminine termination, and passed
eventually into a Moon-goddess "with crescent
horns." Ashtoreth-Karnaim, "Ashtoreth with the
two horns," was already in existence in the age of
Abraham." In Babylonia the Moon-god of ancient
Sumerian belief had never been dethroned; but there
was no Moon-god in Canaan, and accordingly the
transformation of the Babylonian goddess into "the
queen of the night " was a matter of little difficulty.

Once domesticated in Palestine, with her name so
changed as to declare her feminine character, Ash-
toreth soon tended to lose her independence." Just
as there were Baalim or " Baals " by the side of Baal,
so there were Ashtaroth or Ashtoreths " by the side
of Ashtoreth.

220 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

The Semites of Babylonia themselves had already
begun the work of transformation. They too spoke
of Istarat or "Istars," and used the word in the
general sense of "goddesses." In Canaan, however,
Ashtaroth had no such general meaning, but denoted
simply the various Ashtoreths who were worshipped
in different localities, and under different titles. The
individual Ashtoreth of Gebal was separate from the
individual Ashtoreth of Bashan, although they alike
represented the same divine personality.

It is true that even in the West Istar did not always
become the feminine complement of Baal. Here and
there the old form of the name was preserved, without
any feminine suffix. But when this was the case, the
necessary result was that the female character of the
deity was forgotten. Istar was conceived of as a
god, and accordingly in the Moabite Stone Ashtar is
identified with Chemosh, the patron-god of Mesha,
just as in Southern Arabia also Atthar is a male
divinity.

The worship of Ashtoreth absorbed that of the other
goddesses of Canaan. Among them there was one
who had once occupied a very prominent place. This
was Asherah, the goddess of fertility, whose name is
written Asirtu and Asratu in the tablets of Tel el-
Amarna. Asherah was symbolized by a stem stripped
of its branches, or an upright cone of stone, fixed in
the ground, and the symbol and the goddess were at
times confounded together. The symbol is mistrans-
lated "grove" in the Authorized Version of the Old
Testament, and it often stood by the side of the altar
of Baal. We find it thus represented on early seals.
In Palestine it was usually of wood; but in the great
temple of Paphos in Cyprus there was an ancient and

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 221

revered one of stone. This, however, came to be
appropriated to Ashtoreth in the days when the older
Asherah was supplanted by the younger Ashtoreth.

We hear of other Canaanitish divinities from the
monuments of Egypt. The goddess Edom, the wife
of Resheph, has already been referred to. Her name
is found in that of the Gittite, Obed-Edom, "the
servant of Edom," in whose house the ark was kept
for three months (2 Sam. vi. 10). Resheph, too, has
been mentioned in an earlier page. He was the god
of fire and lightning, and on the Egyptian monuments
he is represented as armed with spear and helmet, and
bears the titles of "great god " and "lord of heaven."
Along with him we find pictures of a goddess called
Kedesh and Kesh. She stands on the back of a lion,
with flowers in her left hand and a serpent in her
right, while on her head is the lunar disk between the
horns of a cow. She may be the goddess Edom, or
perhaps the solar divinity who was entitled A in Baby-
lonian, and whose name enters into that of an Edomite
king A-rammu, who is mentioned by Sennacherib.

But, like Istar, a considerable number of the deities
of Palestine were borrowed from Babylonia. In the
Tel el-Amarna tablets the god of Jerusalem is identi-
fied with the warlike Sun-god of Babylonia, Nin-ip,
and there was a sanctuary of the name divinity further
north, in Phoenicia. Foremost among the deities
whose first home was on the banks of the Euphrates
were Anu and Anat and Rimmon. Anu, whose name
is written Anah in Hebrew, was the god of the sky,
and he stood at the head of the Babylonian pantheon.
His wife Anat was but a colourless reflection of him-
self, a grammatical creation of the Semitic languages.
But she shared in the honours that were paid to her

2*2 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

consort, and the divinity that resided in him was re-
flected upon her. Anat, like Ashtoreth, became multi-
plied under many forms, and the Anathoth or "Anat "
signified little more than "goddesses." Between the
Ashtaroth and the Anathoth the difference was but in
name.

The numerous localities in Palestine which received
their names from the god Rimmon are a proof of his
popularity. The Babylonian Rimmon or Ramman
was, strictly speaking, the god of the air, but in the
West he was identified with the Sun-god Hadad, and
a place near Megiddo bore the compound title of
Hadad-Rimmon (Zech. xii. u). His naturalization
in Canaan seems to belong to a very early period ; at
all events, in Sumerian he was called Martu, "the
Amorite," and seal-cylinders speak of "the Amorite
god." One of these has been found in the
Lebanon. The Assyrian tablets tell us that he was
also known as Dadu in the west, and under this form
we find him in names like El-Dad and Be-dad, or
Ben-Dad.

Like Rimmon, Nebo also must have been trans-
ported to Palestine at an early epoch. Nebo "the
prophet " was the interpreter of Bel-Merodach of
Babylon, the patron of cuneiform literature, and the
god to whom the great temple of Borsippa — the
modern Birs-i-Nimrud — was dedicated. Doubtless he
had migrated to the west along with that literary
culture over which he presided. There his name and
worship were attached to many localities. It was on
the summit of Mount Nebo that Moses died; over
Nebo, Isaiah prophesies, " Moab shall howl ; " and
we hear of a city called "the other Nebo" in Judah
(Neh. vii. 33).

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 223

Another god who had been borrowed from Baby-
lonia by the people of Canaan was Malik "the king,"
a title originally of the supreme Baal. Malik is
familiarly known to us in the Old Testament as
Moloch, to whom the first-born were burned in the
fire. At Tyre the god was termed Melech-kirjath,
or "king of the city," which was contracted into
Melkarth, and in the mouths of the Greeks became
Makar. There is a passage in the book of the prophet
Amos (v. 25, 26), upon which the Assyrian texts have
thrown light. We there read : " Have ye offered unto
me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty
years, O house of Israel ? Yet ye have borne Sikkuth
your Malik and Chiun your Zelem, the star of your
god, which ye made to yourselves."

Sikkuth and Chiun are the Babylonian Sakkut and
Kaivan, a name given to the planet Saturn. Sakkut
was a title of the god Nin-ip, and we gather from
Amos that it also represented Malik "the king."
Zelem, "the image," was another Babylonian deity,
and originally denoted "the image" or disk of the
sun. His name and worship were carried into North-
ern Arabia, and a monument has been discovered at
Teima, the Tema of Jsaiah (xxi. 14), which is dedicated
to him. It would seem, from the language of Amos,
that the Babylonian god had been adored in "the
wilderness " as far back as the days when the Israelites
were encamping in it. Nor, indeed, is this surpris-
ing : Babylonian influence in the west belonged to
an age long anterior to that of the Exodus, and even
the mountain whereon the oracles of God were re-
vealed to the Hebrew lawgiver was Sinai, the moun-
tain of Sin. The worship of Sin, the Babylonian
Moon-god, must therefore have" made its way thus far

224 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

into the deserts of Arabia. Inscriptions from South-
ern Arabia have already shown us that there, too, Sin
was known and adored.

Dagon, again, was another god who had his first
home in Babylonia. The name is of Sumerian origin,
and he was associated with Anu, the god of the sky.
Like Sin, he appears to have been worshipped at
Harran ; at all events, Sargon states that he inscribed
the laws of that city "according to the wish of Anu
and Dagon." Along with Anu he would have been
brought to Canaan, and though we first meet with
his name in the Old Testament in connection with
the Philistines, it is certain that he was already one
of the deities of the country whom the Philistine in-
vaders adopted. One of the Canaanitish governors
in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence bears the
Assyrian name of Dagon-takala, "we trust in Dagon."
The Phoenicians made him the god of corn in con-
sequence of the resemblance of his name to the word
which signifies "corn "; primarily, however, he would
have been a god of the earth. The idea that he was
a fish-god is of post-Biblical date, and due to a false
etymology, which derived his name from the Hebrew
dag, "a fish." The fish-god of Babylonia, however,
whose image is sometimes engraved on seals, was a
form of Ea, the god of the deep, and had no con-
nection with Dagon.

Doubtless there were other divinities besides these
whom the peoples of Canaan owed to the Babylonians.
Mr. Tomkins is probably right in seeing in the name
of Beth-lehem a reminiscence of the Babylonian god
Lakhmu, who took part in the creation of the world,
and whom a later philosophizing generation identified
with Anu. But the theology of early Canaan is still

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 225

but little known, and its pantheon is still in great
measure a sealed book. Now and again we meet with
a solitary passage in some papyrus or inscription on
stone, which reveals to us for the first time the name
of an otherwise unknown deity. Who, for instance)
is the goddess 'Ashiti-Khaur, who is addressed, along
with Kedesh, on an Egyptian monument now at
Vienna as "the mistress of heaven " and "ruler of all
the gods ? " The votive altars of Carthage make re-
peated mention of the goddess Tanit, the Peni or
" Face " of Baal, whom the Greeks identified with
Artemis. She must have been known in the mother-
land of Phoenicia, and yet no trace of her worship
there has as yet been found. There were "gods many
and lords many " in primitive Palestine, and though
a comprehensive faith summed them up as its Baalim
and Ashtaroth they yet had individual names and
titles, as well as altars and priests.

But though altars were numerous, temples were not
plentiful. The chief seats of religious worship were
"the high-places," level spots on the summits of hills
or mountains, where altars were erected, and the wor-
shipper was believed to be nearer the dwelling-place
of the gods than he would have been in the plain
below. The altar was frequently some natural boulder
of rock, consecrated by holy oil, and regarded as the
habitation of a god. These sacred stones were termed
beth-els, bcetyli as the Greeks wrote the word, and
they form a distinguishing characteristic of Semitic
faith. In later times many of them were imagined to
have "come down from heaven." So deeply enrooted
with this worship of stones in the Semitic nature, that
even Mohammed, in spite of his iconoclastic zeal, was
obliged to accommodate his creed to the worship of
p

226 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

the Black Stone at Mekka, and the Kaaba is still one
of the most venerated objects of the Mohammedan
faith.

But the sacred stone was not only an object of
worship or the consecrated altar of a deity, it might
also take the place of a temple, and so be in very truth
a beth-el, or "house of God." Thus at Medain Salih
in North-western Arabia Mr. Doughty discovered
three upright stones, which an inscription informed
him were the mesged or "mosque" of the god Aera
of Bozrah. In the great temple of Melkarth at Tyre
Herodotus saw two columns, one of gold, the other of
emerald, reminding us of the two pillars, Jachin and
Boaz, which the Phoenician architect of Solomon
erected in the porch of the temple at Jerusalem
(i Kings vii. 21). Similar columns of stone have
been found in the Phoenician temple, called that of
the Giants, in Gozo, one of which is still standing in
its place.

While certain stones were thus regarded as the
abode of deity, the high places whereon so many of
them stood also received religious worship. The most
prominent of the mountains of Syria were deified :
Carmel became a Penu-el or "Face of God," Hermon
was "the Holy One," and Mount Lebanon was a Baal.
The rivers and springs also were adored as gods, and
the fish which swam in them were accounted sacred.
On the Phoenician coast was a river Kadisha, "the
holy," and the Canaanite maiden saw in the red
marl which the river Adonis brought down from
the hills the blood of the slaughtered Sun-god
Tammuz.

The temple of Solomon, built as it was by Phoeni-
cian architects and workmen, will give us an idea of

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 227

what a Canaanitish temple was like. In its main out-
lines it resembled a temple in Babylonia or Assyria.
There, too, there was an outer court and an inner
sanctuary, with its parakku or "mercy-seat," and its
ark of stone or wood, in which an inscribed tablet of
stone was kept. Like the temple of Jerusalem, the
Babylonian temple looked from the outside much like
a rectangular box, with its four walls rising up blank
and unadorned, to the sky. Within the open court
was a "sea," supported at times on oxen of bronze,
where the priests and servants of the temple per-
formed their ablutions and the sacred vessels were
washed.

The Canaanitish altar was approached by steps,
and was large enough for the sacrifice of an ox.
Besides the sacrifices, offerings of corn and wine, of
fruit and oil were also made to the gods. The sacri-
fices and offerings were of two kinds, the zau'at or
sin-offering, and the shelem or thank-offering. The
sin-offering had to be given wholly to the god, and
was accordingly termed kalil or "complete"; a part
of the thank-offering, on the other hand, might be
carried away by him who made it. Birds, moreover,
might constitute a thank-offering; they were not
allowed when the offering was made for sin. Such
at least was the rule in the later days of Phoenician
ritual, to which belong the sacrificial tariffs that have
been preserved.

In these sacrificial tariffs no mention is made of
human sacrifices, and, as M. Clermont-Ganneau has
pointed out, the ram takes in them the place of the
man. But this was the result of the milder manners
of an age when the Phoenicians had been brought
into close contact with the Greeks. In the older days

228 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

of Canaanitish history human sacrifice had held a
foremost place in the ritual of Syria. It was the
sacrifice of the first-born son that was demanded in
times of danger and trouble, or when the family was
called upon to make a special atonement for sin. The
victim was offered as a burnt sacrifice, which in
Hebrew idiom was euphemistically described as
passing through the fire.

Side by side with these human sacrifices were the
abominations which were performed in the temples in
honour of Ashtoreth. Women acted as prostitutes,
and men who called themselves "dogs" forswore
their manhood. It was these sensualities practised in
the name of religion which caused the iniquity of the
Canaanites to become full.

It is pleasanter to turn to such fragments of Canaan-
itish mythology and cosmological speculation as have
come down to us. Unfortunately most of it belongs
in its present form to the late days of Greek and
Roman domination, when an attempt was made to
fuse the disjointed legends of the various Phoenician
states into a connected whole, and to present them to
Greek readers under a philosophical guise. How
much, therefore, of the strange cosmogony and history
of the gods recorded by Philon of Gebal really goes
back to the patriarchal epoch of Palestine, and how
much of it is of later growth, it is now impossible
to say. In the main, however, it is of ancient
date.

This is shown by the fact that a good deal of it has
been borrowed directly or indirectly from Babylonia.
How this could have happened has been explained by
the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It was while Canaan was
under the influence of Babylonian culture and Baby-

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 229

Ionian government that the myths and traditions of
Babylonia made their way to the West. Among the
tablets are portions of Babylonian legends, one of
which has been carefully annotated by the Egyptian
or Canaanite scribe. It is the story of the queen of
Hades, who had been asked by the gods to a feast
they had made in the heavens. Unable or unwilling
to ascend to it, the goddess sent her servant the
plague-demon, but with the result that Nergal was
commissioned to descend to Hades and destroy its
mistress. The fourteen gates of the infernal world,
each with its attendant warder, were opened before
him, and at last he seized the queen by the hair, drag-
ging her to the ground, and threatening to cut off her
head. But Eris-kigal, the queen of Hades, made a
successful appeal for mercy; she became the wife of
Nergal, and he the lord of the tomb.

Another legend was an endeavour to account for the
origin of death. Adamu, we are told, the first man,
who had been created by Ea, was fishing one day in
the deep sea, when he broke the wings of the south
wind. The south wind flew to complain to Anu in
heaven, and Anu ordered the culprit to appear before
him. But Adamu was instructed by Ea how to act.
Clad in a garment of mourning, he won the hearts
of the two guardians of the gate of heaven, the gods
Tammuz and Gis-zida ("the firmly-fixed post"), so
that they pleaded for him before Anu. Food and
water were offered him, but he refused them for fear
that they might be the food and water of death. Oil
only for anointing and clothing did he accept.
"Then Anu looked upon him and raised his voice in
lamentation : ' O Adamu, wherefore atest thou not,
wherefore didst thou not drink? The gift of life

23o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

cannot now be thine.' " Though "a sinful man " had
been permitted "to behold the innermost parts of
heaven and earth," he had rejected the food and water
of life, and death henceforth was the lot of man-
kind.

It is curious that the commencement of this legend,
the latter portion of which has been found at Tel el-
Amarna, had been brought to the British Museum
from the ruins of the library of Nineveh many years
ago. But until the discovery of the conclusion, its
meaning and character were indecipherable. The
copy made for the library of Nineveh was a late edition
of the text which had been carried from Babylonia to
the banks of the Nile eight hundred years before, and
the fact emphasizes once more the Babylonian char-
acter of the culture and literature possessed by Pales-
tine in the Patriarchal Age.

We need not wonder, therefore, if it is to Babylonia
that the cosmological legends and beliefs of Phoenicia
plainly point. The watery chaos out of which the
world was created, the divine hierarchies, one pair of
deities proceeding from another and an older pair, or
the victory of Kronos over the dragon Ophioneus, are
among the indications of their Babylonian origin.
But far more important than these echoes of Baby-
lonian mythology in the legendary lore of Phoenicia
is the close relationship that exists between the tradi-
tions of Babylonia and the earlier chapters of Genesis.
As is now well known, the Babylonian account of the
Deluge agrees even in details with that which we find
in the Bible, though the polytheism of Chaldaea is
there replaced by an uncompromising monotheism,
and there are little touches, like the substitution of an
"ark" for the Babylonian "ship," which show that

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION 231

the narrative has been transported to Palestine.
Equally Babylonian in origin is the history of the
Tower of Babel, while two of the rivers of Eden are
the Tigris and Euphrates, and Eden itself is the Edin
or "Plain" of Babylonia.

Not so long ago it was the fashion to declare that
such coincidences between Babylonian and Hebrew
literature could be due only to the long sojourn of the
Jews in Babylonia during the twenty years of the
Exile. But we now know that the traditions and
legends of Babylonia were already known in Canaan
before the Israelites had entered the Promised Land.
It was not needful for the Hebrew writer to go to
Chaldaea in order that he might learn them ; when
Moses was born they were already current both in
Palestine and on the banks of the Nile. The Baby-
lonian colouring of the early chapters of Genesis is
just what archaeology would teach us to expect it
would have been had the Pentateuch been of the age
to which it lays claim.

Here and there, indeed, there are passages which
must be of that age, and of none other. When in
the tenth chapter of Genesis Canaan is made the
brother of Cush and Mizraim, of Ethiopia and Egypt,
we are carried back at once to the days when Palestine
was an Egyptian province. The statement is appli-
cable to no other age. Geographically Canaan lay
outside the southern zone to which Egypt and
Ethiopia belonged, except during the epoch of the
eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, when all three
were alike portions of a single empire. With the fall
of that empire the statement ceased to be correct or
even conceivable. After the era of the Israelitish con-
quest Canaan and Egypt were separated one from the

232 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

other, not to be again united save for a brief space
towards the close of the Jewish monarchy. Palestine
henceforth belonged to Asia, not to Africa, to the
middle zone, that is to say, which was given over to
the sons of Shem.

CHAPTER VII

THE RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN PALESTINE

When the first edition of this book was printed, in
1895, excavation in Palestine was still in its infancy.
The Palestine Exploration Fund had been the first to
enter the field, and Prof. Flinders Petrie's excavations
on the site of the ancient Lachish had enabled him to
found the science of Palestinian archaeology. His
brilliant sketch of the archaeological history of
Canaan, based chiefly on the pottery he discovered,
has been confirmed by subsequent research at nearly
every point.

Prof. Petrie's work at Lachish was followed by
that of Dr. Bliss, and culminated in the discovery of
the cuneiform tablet of which a translation is given
on an earlier page. A combination of untoward acci-
dents, however, made it impossible to continue the
excavations at Lachish, and Dr. Bliss's subsequent
work in tracing the walls of Jerusalem had to do with
a period which lies far outside the limits of Patri-
archal Palestine. But it was otherwise with the
excavations carried on by the Fund in several of the
smaller tels or ancient mounds in the south of Pales-
tine— Tell Zakariya, Tell es-Safi, Tell Jedeida, and
Tell Sandahanna — which resulted in throwing a good
deal of light on the history of Canaanite pottery.
Then came a very important piece of work, the almost
exhaustive excavation of the ancient Gezer, which has
233

234 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

occupied a good many years of hard work, and has
been carried out with scientific thoroughness and
insight by Prof. Stewart Macalister. Not only has
the site of the city been explored, but the tombs as
well, and a large part of what we now know about
Patriarchal Canaan and its inhabitants is due to his
persevering labours.

Meanwhile other scientific Societies had been stirred
into activity in Palestine. Dr. Sellin, on behalf of the
Austrians, excavated first at Taanach and then at
Jericho, and discovered at Taanach a number of
cuneiform tablets which contain the correspondence of
private Canaanite individuals. At Tell Mutesellim,
where Megiddo once stood, Dr. Schumacher has
excavated for a German Society, and an American
expedition under Dr. Reisner is at present working at
Samaria, where the remains of the palace of Ahab
have been discovered, as well as the inscribed frag-
ments of the wine-jars that were stored in its cellar.
Samaria, however, belongs to the days of the Israelitish
monarchy, not to the age that preceded the Exodus.

The history of Canaan begins in the palaeolithic
epoch. Palaeolithic implements are found on the
surface of the plains and tell us of a time when Europe
was still in the grip of the glacial age, and the geo-
graphy of the Mediterranean was widely different
from what it is to-day. When and how the palaeo-
lithic epoch passed away is still a question ; ages later
we find neolithic man, with his implements of polished
stone, in the possession of the land and the enjoyment
of a culture which must have needed many centuries
for its development.

The neolithic inhabitants of Palestine belonged to
a race which was widely spread over the Mediter-

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 235

ranean. They were of comparatively short stature,
averaging about five feet six inches in height, and
they were dolichocephalic or long-headed. They
buried their dead after partial cremation in caves, and
more than one of their burial places was discovered
by Prof. Macalister at Gezer. Among the caves is a
double one which seems to have been used for reli-
gious purposes, certain so-called "cup-markings" on
the rock being probably connected with the primitive
worship of the time.

The pottery of the neolithic people was rough and
hand-made, but was often ornamented by burnished
lines, moulded cord-patterns or streaks of reddish
brown and white. As they used grindstones they
must have been already acquainted with corn. They
possessed, too, the most important domestic animals,
the ox, the sheep, the goat and the swine, and certain
objects which are probably spindle-whorls would
indicate that they practised the art of weaving.

This neolithic period was of long duration. There
is no direct proof of this as yet in Palestine, but
excavations at Carchemish on the Euphrates and at
Sakje-gozu north of the Gulf of Antioch have shown
that in Syria also there was a neolithic period coeval
with that of Palestine, and there is evidence in both
these places that it must have lasted for untold
centuries.

Over the primitive neolithic population swept, some-
where about 3000 B.C., the tide of Semitic migration
and conquest. A Semitic race, called Amorite by the
Babylonians and apparently also by itself, made its
way from the East to the Mediterranean, and there,
in the lands of Syria and Palestine, became the domi-
nant people. The Amorites, as we may call them,

236 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

were of taller stature and stouter build than their
predecessors, their skulls were somewhat rounder, and
they did not burn their dead. Above all, they were
acquainted with the use of metals, which they had
learned from the Babylonians along with other
elements of Babylonian culture, and they were con-
sequently armed with weapons of hardened copper
and, at a later date, of bronze. Against these weapons
of copper and bronze the neolithic population con-
tended in vain. Syria and Palestine were occupied
by the new race, which intermarried and mixed with
its predecessors and so produced the Canaan ites of
history.

Houses of stone and brick now took the place of
wigwams, and the cities were surrounded with massive
walls. The wall of Gezer was more than thirteen feet
thick and correspondingly high and was provided
with towers ; it lasted down to the age of the Egyptian
conquest of Palestine, and from the mass of debris
which accumulated about it, Prof. Macalister calcu-
lates that it must have been built at least as early as
2900 B.C. The walls of Megiddo were no less than
twenty-six feet in thickness, independently of the
glacis of beaten earth which protected their foot. The
wall was made of large hammer-dressed blocks of
stone, and that at Gezer was provided with two gates.

Quite as remarkable as the city walls were the
arrangements for providing the city with water in
time of siege. At Gezer a tunnel of grandiose dimen-
sions was hewn out of the solid rock until it reached
an abundant spring of water ninety-four and a half
feet below the original surface of the soil. The en-
trance to the tunnel was twenty-three feet in height
and thirteen feet broad, and steps were cut in the

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 237

sloping rock down to the level of the water, while the
roof was shaped into the form of a barrel vault. The
work implies advanced engineering skill as well as
the control of large resources.

Prominent above all other buildings was the High
Place. At Gezer this consisted of ten huge monoliths,
of which eight are still standing in a paved court.
The second seems to have been exceptionally sacred
as parts of its surface have been worn and polished
by the kisses of the worshippers, while the seventh
has been transported from a distance, probably from
the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. At Tel es-Safi there
were three monoliths; at Megiddo only two, but here
the construction of the sanctuary was more elaborate,
and there was an altar south of the standing stones.
The altar at Gezer appears to have been placed
between the fifth and sixth stones.

The High Place at Gezer was built over the double
cavern of the neolithic population, thus carrying on
the traditions of the ancient sanctity of the spot. The
twofold cavern seems to have been closely connected
with the plan of an Amorite sanctuary : at Megiddo
its place was taken by an artificial cavern with vaulted
roof, while the cave under the Dome of the Rock on
the temple-hill of Jerusalem is well known. The soil
beneath the sanctuary has been described as "a verit-
able necropolis of infants." On all sides there were
gruesome evidences of one of the dark features of
Canaanite religion, the sacrifice of children. Their
skeletons were found in numberless jars along with a
lamp and bowl, and sometimes one or two other small
vessels intended to contain the food and drink neces-
sary for the support of the dead in their journey to
the other world. Most of the children were newly

238 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

born, and were buried on the east side of the line of
monoliths; in a few cases, however, the age was more
advanced, and interments were met with to the west of
the altar. In one or two instances only were there
traces of fire. Similar burials were discovered at
Megiddo, fully bearing out the accusations brought
against Canaanitish worship by the writers of the Old
Testament. With the arrival of the Israelites human
sacrifice disappeared. The jar with its lamp and bowl
still remained, but it was filled with sand instead of
the bones of children, as Prof. Petrie found at
Lachish. It thus became a merely meaningless sur-
vival of an old custom, testifying to an entire change
in the religious conceptions of the people.

Among the rubbish that had accumulated around
the sanctuary of Gezer rt is interesting to note that
a bronze serpent was discovered. There was a bronze
serpent also in the temple of Jerusalem, it will be
remembered, which we are told was destroyed by
Hezekiah, as it had become an object of worship.

The pottery of the neolithic age, as has been already
said, was for the most part coarse and crude, some of
it being ornamented with streaks of white, red or black
on a yellow or red wash. The pottery of the Amorites
was of a much finer character. That excavated at
Gezer has enabled Prof. Macalister to divide the
history of Amorite Canaan before the Israelite in-
vasion into two periods, which he terms the First
and Second Amorite, the second period beginning,
perhaps, about 2100 B.C. In the first period foreign
influence is hardly discernible, at all events so far as
the pottery is concerned; but the potter's wheel,
worked by the hand, had been introduced ; the forms
of the vessels were varied and elegant, and the vases

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 239

were ornamented not only with mouldings, but also
with horizontal bands of red, black and grey. Unlike
the pottery of Egypt or Babylonia, the jugs of Canaan
were at all periods provided with loop handles, thus
resembling the vases of Krete and Cyprus, Greece
and Asia Minor. In the use of the red colour of some
of the Amorite pottery, indeed, Prof. Myres would
recognize the influence of the Hittites, with whom,
to the north of the Halys, he believes the employment
of the red pigment originated. Terra-cotta figures of
the goddess Ashtoreth with the hands on the breasts
occur from time to time.

The spindles and weavers' weights show that there
must have been a good deal of cloth-making. Buttons
were employed for fastening the garments on the
body; it was not till later that the fibula or brooch
became common. Pins of bone, and afterwards of
bronze, were in much request; so too were needles.
Bracelets, anklets, finger-rings and ear-rings of the
precious metals were largely used, and Egypt supplied
scarabs and amulets for the further adornment of the
person, many of which go back to the time of the
twelfth dynasty (2500 B.C.).

Beads were numerous, especially small disks of
carnelian, but green and yellow glazed beads of
Egyptian "porcelain" were also imported from the
Nile. The bronze spear and dagger were known, as
well as the bronze arrow-head, though arrow-heads
of flint were employed by the side of it. But the old
stone mace was still a favourite weapon.

Corn was reaped with sickles fitted with sharp
flints, and was pounded in a quern ; the cakes of bread,
after being baked, were carried on terra-cotter trays.
Oil was extracted from the olive in presses, and barley

24o PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

and oats were used for food as well as wheat. Figs,
grapes and pomegranates were cultivated, and the
grape was made into wine. The donkey was the
ordinary beast of burden ; the camel, however, occa-
sionally made its way from the Arabian desert into
the fields of Canaan. The skeleton of a dog was
found with that of his master in one of the burial
caves.

With what Prof. Macalister calls the second
Semitic period we enter upon an epoch of active com-
mercial intercourse between Canaan and its neigh-
bours, and a corresponding development of luxury
in the daily life of its villagers. The Hyksos dynasties
were now ruling Egypt ; their kings were of Canaanite
origin, and the centre of their power was in Asia
rather than in Egypt. Hitherto it had been Egypt
which had been the mistress of Canaan when the latter
country was under Egyptian control ; now, on the
contrary, it was Canaan that was the mistress of
Egypt. For five hundred years (2 100-1600 B.C.) the
Hyksos Pharaohs ruled in the valley of the Nile, and
the monuments of one of them who bears the Canaan-
ite name of Khayan have been found in Babylonia on
the one side and in Krete on the other. As might
have been expected, numerous scarabs of the Hyksos
period have been disinterred in Canaan.

The Hyksos invasion of Egypt was part of a general
movement on the part of the Amorite or West-Semitic
tribes, one result of which was the conquest of
Northern Babylonia and the establishment of an
Amorite dynasty at Babylon (2225-1926 B.C.). The
most famous of the kings of this dynasty was Kham-
murabi or Amraphel, whose date has now been deter-
mined astronomically by Dr. Kugler (2123-2081 B.C.).

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 241

After shaking off the Elamite supremacy and uniting
northern and southern Babylonia, he re-established
the old empire of Sargon of Akkad and extended his
rule from Susa in the mountains of Elam in the east
to the shores of the Mediterranean in the west.
Towards the end of his reign the great code of laws
was compiled, a copy of which was discovered by
M. de Morgan in the ruins of Susa. The code was
obeyed in all parts of his dominions — in Elam and
Canaan as well as in Babylonia. It is interesting,
therefore, to find instances of conformity with its
regulations in the history of the Hebrew patriarchs,
where they differed from the regulations afterwards in
force under the Mosaic law. Thus adoption which
was practically unknown under the latter code, but
was a fundamental fact in Babylonian social life, is
illustrated by the adoption of Eliezer of Damascus by
the childless Abraham. In agreement with the Baby-
lonian code the adopted son, who had been a slave,
received his freedom and became the heir to the
property of his adopted father. So, again, in the
history of Hagar and Ishmael the Babylonian law is
observed which allowed the childless wife to present
her husband with a concubine, but laid down that if
the concubine had had a child and a dispute arose
between her and the wife, the concubine could not be
reduced to slavery again, nor the child deprived of his
lawful inheritance. The concubine could be sold only
if "she had not borne children."

The Babylonian occupation of Syria and Canaan
had already begun in the time of the dynasty of Ur
(2500 B.C.). Babylonian soldiers, officials and mer-
chants made their way to the West, while conversely
"Amorites" settled in the Babylonian cities, more
9.

242 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

especially in Ur. Along with other elements of Baby-
lonian culture, which was essentially literary, the art
of writing was necessarily carried to the west. The
script of Palestine became the cuneiform script of
Babylonia, and its literary language that of the Baby-
lonians. A curious memorial of it has been found in
the Lebanon in the shape of a notice sent by the
Babylonian government to its officers in Syria telling
them the name under which the seventh year of
Samsu-iluna, the son and successor of Khammurabi,
was to be officially known. An earlier memorial is
in the museum of the Louvre, consisting of part of a
cadastral survey drawn up by Urimelech, the governor
of Syria and Palestine, for the purposes of taxation in
the time of the dynasty of Ur.

In the south of Palestine, however, Egyptian in-
fluence seems to have been stronger than Babylonian.
At all events this was the case at Gezer, where
Egyptians of the age of the twelfth dynasty actually
settled and were buried. Egyptian pottery, beads,
amulets and the like were freely imported into the
country, and along with the trade with Egypt went
a trade also with Krete, Cyprus and Asia Minor.
Some of the pottery shows traces of relationship to
the pottery found on the site of an Assyrian settlement
in Cappadocia of the age of the dynasty of Ur. Prof.
Macalister describes the Gezer pottery of the "Second
Semitic period" as "well-refined and good," as repre-
senting the "best and most graceful" forms, and as
having been made on the potter's wheel worked by
the foot. A considerable proportion of the pottery
was elaborately painted, though moulding had not
gone out of fashion; among the patterns are spirited
representations of birds, fish and animals, the outlines
traced with a firm, bold hand and filled in with masses

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 243

of colour. Similar patterns and animal designs are
found painted in the same colours 'on the early pottery
of Asia Minor, and it was from Asia Minor that the
bronze of Palestine and Assyria was derived. The
Canaanite lamp, which is a small dish the side of
which has been pinched up in one place, first makes
its appearance in the "Second Semitic period."

Gold and silver objects are, of course, not often met
with by the excavator; it is more usually the objects
that were considered worthless in the past which have
been left to him. Sufficient jewellery, however, has
been discovered to illustrate the descriptions of Canaan-
ite wealth contained in the Egyptian inscriptions and
to indicate the luxury that prevailed even in a small
provincial town. At Taanach Dr. Sellin discovered
gold and silver ornaments on the body of a woman
in a deserted house which, as he remarks, are of them-
selves enough to remove "all grounds for doubting
such accounts as those in Joshua (vii. 21), and Judges
(viii. 26)" ; and the numerous objects of Egyptian
fayence met with at Gezer make it plain that the
products of the foreign jeweller's art had a ready sale.

At Taanach Dr. Sellin was so fortunate as to find
the archive chamber of the governor's house, together
with some of the cuneiform tablets which had once
lain in the archive chest. Some of them were private
letters from one Canaanite sheikh to another, and they
may be dated about fifty years after the close of the
Tel el-Amarna correspondence. They show, on the
one hand, how general must have been a knowledge
of reading and writing, and that, too, in the com-
plicated and difficult cuneiform script; and on the
other hand, that the script used in Palestine was not
yet the Phoenician alphabet, but the cuneiform sylla-
bary, while the literary language was Babylonian.
Q 2

244 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

When the inhabitants of a petty Canaanite town could
thus correspond with one another on private and
trivial matters, we may conclude that the schools must
have been numerous and well equipped. Several styli
for writing upon clay were found by Prof. Macalister
at Gezer.

One of the letters is as follows: "To Istar-yisur
thus says Guli-Hadad. Live happily ! May the gods
grant health to thyself, your house and your sons !
You have written to me about the money . . , and
behold, I will give 50 pieces of silver, since this has
not yet been done. — Again : Why have you sent your
salutation here afresh ? All you have heard there I
have (already) learned through Bel-ram. — Again :
If the finger of the goddess Asherah point, let them
announce the omen and follow it, and you shall
describe to me both the sign and the event. As to your
daughter, we know the one, Salmisa, who is in the city
of Rabbah, and if she grows up, you must give her to
be the prince's (wife) ; she is in truth fit for a lord."

Another letter was addressed to Istar-yisur: "To
Istar-yisur thus says Akhi-yami. May the lord of the
gods protect your life, for you are (my) brother, and
love is in your bowels and in your heart. When I
was in Gurra in prison a workman gave me 2 swords,1
a lance and 2 bowls for nothing ; when the lance which
he has made is finished I will send it through Bur-
idwa. — Again : look after your towns, for they (i. e.
the enemy) have done their deed against me, every
one who has done it against the towns; look now if
the enemy has acted well towards you. — Again :If he
shows anger, . . him and there will be a great victory.
— Again : Let Ilu-rabi enter Rehob and either send
my man to you or else protect him."

1 Magari, the mecMrdth of Genesis xlix. 5.

RESULTS OF RECENT EXCAVATIONS 245

Another letter, the end of which is broken, begins
thus: "To Istar-yisur thus says Aman-khasir. May
[Hadad] protect your life ! You shall send me another
quantity of oil in a flask (?). — Again : Your militia l
are not among the garrison, nor do you yourself come
now to me. At all events send your brother. — Again :
I am in Gaza and you do not come to me. Behold I
am [marching] against the enemy while you remain
in your city."

Another letter from the same correspondent is more
complete : " To Istar-yisur thus says Aman-khasir :
May Hadad protect your life ! Send your brothers
along with their carriages, and send your tribute of
a horse as well as presents and all the prisoners who
are with you : send them to-morrow to Megiddo."

Besides the letters the archive-chamber contained
lists of the militia each of the leading citizens was
required to provide, together with other documents of
an official character. At Gezer also Prof. Macalister
found cuneiform tablets, but they belong to a later
period of history, after the fall of Samaria, when Pales-
tine was under Assyrian control. At Jericho, however,
a number of clay tablets were discovered by Dr. Sellin
on the flat roof of a house adjoining the old Canaanite
wall, where they had been laid out to dry. They were
as yet uninscribed; the capture of the city by the
Israelites, which must have taken place just after they
had been made, will have interrupted the correspond-
ence for which they were intended. It may even be
that they had been destined to be letters summoning
help from the surrounding cities of Canaan against
the Israelitish invader.

1 Khanak&y the khanichim or " trained troops " of Abram, Gen-
esis xiv. 14.

APPENDIX

THE AMORITES

Thanks to the cuneiform inscriptions a flood of
light has recently been thrown upon the early history
of the Amorites. It was the name by which the West-
Semitic tribes of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine
were known to the Babylonians in the age of Abra-
ham, and it would seem to have been also the name
by which they called themselves. The Amorite
dialects belonged to that branch of the Semitic family
of speech of which Phoenician and Hebrew — "the
language of Canaan," as Isaiah calls it — are the best-
known representatives.

Mention of "the king of the Amorites" appears
from time to time in Babylonian literature of the
Abrahamic age. His chief seat seems to have been
Harran, and while the Babylonian empire lasted he
acknowledged the supremacy of the Babylonian
monarch. It was from Harran probably that the
founder of the Amorite dynasty at Babylon came, to
which Khammu-rabi or Amraphel belonged. Amor-
ites had long been settled in the Babylonian cities,
largely for the purposes of trade, and their names are
frequently met with in the commercial and legal
documents of the Patriarchal period. The names are
those which characterize that period in the Old Testa-
ment— Abram (Abaramu), Jacob (Ya'qubu), Joseph
(Yasupu), etc. Ur, which had been the home of a
246

APPENDIX 247

powerful dynasty and was built on the West-Semitic
side of the Euphrates, would naturally have been
specially frequented by the Amorite settlers in Baby-
lonia ; hence it is not astonishing that, as at Ur, so
too in Harran, the great temple of the city was dedi-
cated to the Moon-god. Since the grandfather of
Abraham is said to have been the son of Serug, his
family would have migrated from Serug (Sarugi in
the inscriptions), which was in the neighbourhood of
Harran and is referred to in the tablets that deal with
trade. Abraham's father and grandfather had Meso-
potamian names which recur in the cuneiform texts.
Some of the Amorite names are compounded with that
of the god Yahu, the Yahveh of the Old Testament.
It would seem, indeed, that Yahu was the supreme
deity of the Amorite population, since we are told by
the Babylonian scribes that the name was equivalent
to ilu "the God."

After the fall of the Amorite dynasty in Babylonia,
which traced its origin to Samu or Shem, the Amorite
kingdom became independent (1926 B.C.). Its chief
enemies were now the Hittites of Asia Minor, who had
already made themselves formidable to the Babylonian
empire. Independent principalities grew up within what
had once been the kingdom of "the king of the Amor-
ites," though he still continued toexercise his authority
over a large part of the country west of the Euphrates.
When the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty made
Palestine and Syria Egyptian provinces, the name of
"Amorite" was restricted to the mountaineers of
Canaan, and more especially to the district immediately
to the north of the later Palestine. Here was the seat of
Amorite power in the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets,
and here the final scene was played out between the

248 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE

two rivals for the possession of Syria, Egypt and the
Hittites. While the Tel el-Amarna letters have given
us the Egyptian version of the story, the cuneiform
tablets found at Boghaz Keui, the Hittite capital in
Cappadocia, have given us the Hittite version. For
some time the Amorite kings, Ebed-Asherah and his
successor Aziru, endeavoured to keep on good terms
with both parties, and to represent themselves as the
faithful servants of both the Egyptian and the Hittite
governments; but eventually the Hittites prevailed;
the Egyptian governors were driven from Syria, and
Aziru became the vassal of the Hittite monarch, with
an annual tribute of 300 shekels of gold. His great-
grandson was married to a Hittite princess, and an
agreement was made between him and his suzerain
that the succession to the Amorite throne should be
confined to her descendants. It was one of these, less
than a century later, who would have been the Sihon
of the Old Testament.

INDEX

A (Deity), 221
Abel (place), 132
Abel-mizraim, 173
Abiliya, 109

Abimelech, 107, 109, no
Abram (in Babylonian), 146
Achshaph or Ekdippa, 182, 188,

197
Acre (Akku), 116, 133, 134, 136,

197, 203
Adai, 123
Adamim, 189, 197
Adamu, 229
Addar, 132
Adon, 114
Adoni-zedek, 65
Adullam, 182, 191
Ahmes I., 76, 81
Aia, 178
Ajalon, 119, 123
Akizzi, 115
Akkad, 47

Alasiya, 73, 92, 136, 192
'Aluna or 'Arna, 84, 196
Amalekites 23, 30, 34, 35, 45
Amanus, 53, 93
Amber, 73, 209
Amenophis II., 91, 95
Amenophis III., 96, 97, 117
Amenophis IV., or Khu-n-Aten,

62, 74, 97 et seq.
Ammi, 19, 54
Ammi-anshi, 177
Ammi-ditana, 54
Ammiya, 113
Ammon, 19, 54, 55

Ammunira, 107

Amon-apt, 131

Amorites, 25, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 40

et seq., 48, 49, 53, 57, 95, 107

et seq., 154, 236, 240, 246-8
Amorites, god of, 222
Amraphel, 55, 57, 240
Anab, 190
Anaharath, 197
Anakim, 31, 32
Anat, 71, 200, 221
Anu, 71, 144, 221
Anugas or Nukhasse, 85, 89, 92
Aqabih, Gulf of, 94
Aram-Naharaim (Mitanni), 74

81, 89, 96, 114
Ararat, 39
Argob, 20
Ariel, 183

Arioch (see Eri-Aku), 55
Arka, 22, 45, no
Arvad, 45, 86, 113
Arzaya, 123
Asher, 188
Asherah, 220
Ashiti-Khaur, 225
Ashkelon, 122, 130, 203
Ashtaroth-Karnaim, 30, 31, 115,

132, 139, 196
Ashtoreth, 144, 218 et seq.
Assyria, 86, 134
Aten-Ra, 98
Aupa {see Ube), 114
Avim, 46
Ayab, 132
Aziru, 107 et seq. 248

249

250

INDEX

Baal, 218

Baalbek, 21

Babylon, 53, 88, 90

Babylonia, 76, 217

Babylonians, 76

Balaam, 19, 133

Bashan, 20, 30, 31, 32, 82, 115

Bedad, 222

Beduin, 23, 45, 82, 108, 109, 181

Beer-sheba, 155, 157

Bek'a, 21

Bene-berak, 117

Beth-anath, 138, 200, 203

Beth-el, 132, 146, 169, 183, 191,

203
Bethels, 225 et seq.
Beth-lehem, 71, 224
Beth-On, 165
Beth-Sannah, 124
Beth-Ya, 200
Beya or Baya, 1 30
Bey rout, 22, 142, 178, 181, 187
Bin-sumya, 118
Biridaswa, 115
Biridi, 117
Bliss, Mr., 73, 104
Bosra, 115

Burna-buryas, 96, \$3 et seq.
Buzruna, 115

Camel, 147
Cana, 191

Canaan, 34 et seq., 135 ; art of,
209 et seq.; merchants in, 210
Canaanite words, 211
Canaanites, 35, 91
Carchemish, 37, 38, 53, 86, 96,

235
Carmel of Judah, 62, 136, 203
Carmel, Mount, 25, 197, 203
Chedor-laomer, 30, 59, 144
Chimham, 136, 203
Chinneroth, 197
Chiun, 223
Circumcision, 152
Code of Laws, 241
Copper, 209

Creation legends, 230

Cush, 79, 129, 231

Cyprus, 48, 51, 73, 89, 136, 138

Dagon, 71, 144, 224
Damascus, 20, 55, 85, 115, 151,

196
Dapul, 138, 182, 203
Davis, Mr. T. ML, 97
Dead Sea, 153
Debir, 69, 205
Deluge story, 230
Dor, 22
Dothan, 196
Doughty, Mr., 226

Ea,224

Ebed-Asherah, 107 et seq., 248

Ebed-Kheba, 43, 62, 68, 104, 116

et seq.
Ebed-Sullim, 112
Edom, town of, 132 ; god, 198,

221
Edomites, 33, 93
Elam, 48, 55, 127
Elephants, 88
Eliezer, 151, 241
Elimelech, 121, 127
El-rabi-Hor, 113
Emim, 30, 31, 32
En-athon, 117, 132
En-gedi, 34
En-han-nabi, 214
Eri-Aku (Arioch), 53, 55 et seq.
Eta-gama (or Aidhu-gama), 112,

Fenkhu, 90, 195

Galeed, 166

Gath, 198, 199

Gath- Carmel, 120, 124, 200

Gath-Rimmon, 117

Gaza, 83, 95, 124, 141, 156, 195,

203
Gaza or Khazi, 116, 245
Gebal, 37, 107 et seq., 131, 187

INDEX

2S»

Gebel Usdum, 153

Gerar, 155

Gezer, 122, 130, 236, 237, 245

Gibeah, 200

Gilu-khipa, 96

Girgashites, 44

Goshen, 173

Gudea, 52

Hadad, 222

Hadad-dan, 130

Hadad-Rimmon, 222

Hadad-sum, 216

Hadashah, 64, 205, 207

Hamath, 36, 45, 189

Harankal, 85

Har-el, 67, 199

Harran, 64, 143, 224, 246

Havilah, 53

Hazezon-tamar, 34, 43, 154

Hazor, 112, 182, 189

Heber, 127

Hebrew words in tablets, 213

Hebron, 31, 32, 80, 126, 148, 160

et seq., 200
Hekdl, etymology of, 64, 215
Hekalitn, 199
Helkath, 200
Hermon, 16, 24, 206, 226
Herodotus, 36
High Places, 237
Hittites, 35, 37 et seq., 88 et seq.,

104, 109, 128, 137, 160, 180
Hivites, 44
Horites, 30, 33
Horus, 216
Hui, 135
Hyksos, 79, 80, 146, 171, 240

Ibleam, 197

I hem or I ha {see Yahem), 83

Inuam, 85, 115, 136, 203

Ir-shemesh, 138

Iron, 192

Isaiah, 62, 212

Istar (Ashtoreth) 144, 219

Ituraea, 20

j Jachin and Boaz, 226
! Jacob-el, 138, 167, 200
! Jebusites, 36, 43
! Jehovah-jireh, 1 59

Jephthah-Hadad, 106, 120

Jericho, excavations in, 234, 245

Jerusalem {see Salem), 26, 43, 63,
66 etseq., 122 et seq., 150, 204 ;
etymology of name, 63

Joppa, 130, 131, 184

Jordan, 18

Joseph, 171 et seq.

Joseph-el, 199

Kadesh on the Orontes, 37, 83,

86, 136, 141, 181, 187
Kadesh-barnea, 29, 23, 50, 55, 155
Kadmonites, 177
! Kaft, 72, 74
! Kassites, 76, 123, 129
Kedesh (goddess), 221
Keilah, 62, 124, 125
Kenites, 193

Khabiri, 43, 106, 120, 124 et seq.
Khalunni, 115

Khammurabi, 53, 57, 60, 240
Khani, 108
Khata, 37
Khatu-sil, 137
Khatip (Hotep), 108
Khayapa, no
Khu-n-Aten (Amenophis IV.), 62,

98 et seq.
Kiriathaim, 30, 33
Kirjath-Sepher, 70, 139, 190, 191
Kishion, 197
Kudur-Lagamar (Chedor-lao-

mer), 56
Kudur-Mabug, 56
Kumidi (or Kamdu), 109, 116,

136, 142, 187, 195, 203
Kuri-galzu, 134

Labai, 116 et seq., 122, 126
Lachish, 73, 104, 120, 122
Lagamar, 59
Laish, 22, 197

252

INDEX

Lakhmu, 71, 224
Lamp, Canaanite, 243
Larsa (Ellasar), 53, 56, 59
Lebanon, 24, 52, 87
Levi, 140
Levi-el, 142
Lot, 55

Lotan (Lutennu), 82, 129, 135,
178

Macalister, Prof., 234, 235, 244
Ma'arath, 187, 200
Machpelah, 160
Mafkat (Sinai), 49, 94
Magan (Sinai), 49
Magoras, 141, 1K7, 205
Malchiel, 117 et seq., 131
Manahath, 130
Max Miiller, Dr. W., 139, 178,

190
Megiddo, 26, 83 et seq., 183, 234
Melchizedek, 61 et seq., 149
Melkarth, 223
Meneptah, 95, 139, 140
Merom, 138, 196
Migdol, 134
Misheal, 197
Misi, 82
Mitanni (Aram-Naharaim), 74,

77,93,96, 108, 129
Miya-Riya (Meri-Ra), 124
Mizraim, 36

Moab, 19, 138, 155, 204
Mohar, Travels of a, 70, 176 et

seq.
Moloch, 71, 223
Moriah, 66, 158 et seq., 199
Musikhuna, 130
Mut-Hadad, 132
Myres, Prof., 239

Na'amah, 199
Namya-waza, 112, 115, 116
Naram-Sin, 48, 51, 144
Nebo, 71, 222
Negeb, 23
Neolithic age, 234

Ni, 87, 91, 108, 114
Nimrod, 79
Nin-ip, 68, 125, 221
Nukhasse (Anugas), 85, 89, 92,
100, 108

On, 21, 79, 165

Pa-Hor, 109

Pakhanate, 11 1

Pa-ur, 123, 124

Palaeolithic age, 234

Pel la, 136, 196

Penuel, or Peniel, 167, 226

Perizzites, 17, 44, 193

Pethor, 19

Petrie, Prof., 41, 97, 167

Petrie, excavations of, 233

Philistines, 14, 141, 156

Phoenicia, 22, 77, 90, 187

Phoenician alphabet, 217

Phoenicians, 195, 206

Pinches, Dr., 167

Pottery, Canaanite, 235, 238

Pu-Hadad, 130

Purple-dye, 72

Qana or Qina, 84
Qatna, 92, 114

Ra, 79

Rabbah, 67, 124, 125, 244

Ramses II., 18, 38, 64, 70, 136 et

seq., 139, 201
Ramses III., 18, 64, 94, 140 et

seq., 202, 205
Raphia, 192
Raphon, 31, 196
Rehob, 191, 244
Rehoboth, 163, 192
Reisner, Dr., 234
Rephaim, 30, 31, 32, 41, 196
Resheph, 18, 198, 204
Rethpana, Lake of, 18, 142, 204
Rianap, 130

Rib-Hadad, 77, 106 et seq.
Rimmon, 222

INDEX

253

Rimmon-nirari, 101
Rowlands, Dr., 33, 155

Sacrifice of the firstborn, 228, 237

Sacrifices, 227

Salem or Shalem (Jerusalem),

61, 64, 142, 203, 204
Salim (god) 61, 63, 150
Samaria, excavations in, 234
Sangar (see Singara), 58, 88
Saratum or Zurata, 1 33
Sarepta, 182
Sardinians, 82, 109
Sargon of Akkad, 42, 47, 144,

241
Scheil, Dr., 104
Schumacher, Dr., 139, 234
Seal-cylinders, 217
Seir, 33,45.94, 120
Sela, 38

Sellin, Dr., 234, 243
Serpent, bronze, 238
Serug, 247
Set, 216

Seti I., 35, 135, 203
Seti or Suta, 116, 119
Shalem or Salem, 168
Shasu (see Beduin), 34, 35
Shechem, 25, 26, 41, 124, 139,

146, 182, 189
Shem, 247
Shenir, 25, 50, 206
Shiloh, 26
Shimron, 196
Shimron-meron, 189
Shinab, 61
Shinar, 58
Ships, 212
Shunem, 117, 197
Sibti-Hadad, 131
Siddim, 30, 61, 153
Sidon, 36, 109, 112, 182, 216
Sihon, 42, 43
Sin (city), 45
Sin (god), 143,223
Sinai, 49, 50, 94, 138, 143, 223
Singara (see Sangar), 93

Sinuhit, 177 et seq.
Sirah, 200
Sirion, 24
Sitti or Sati, 34
Socho, 138, 198, 203
Sodom, 55, 147, 204
Sonzar, 114
Stone of Job, 139
Subari, 75
Subsalla, 53
Sum-Adda, 133
Sumer, 47, 58
Sutarna, 96, 130
Sutatna or Zid-athon, 133
Sutekh, 79
Sute, 34, 82, 109

Su-yardata or Su-ardatum, 1 1 8,
125

Taanach, 84, 130, 197, 234, 243

Tagi, 118, 124, 126

Takhis, 87, 95, 182, 189

Tamar (Tumur), 130

Tammuz, 229

Tanit, 225

Tapun, 200

Tarqu, 191

Teie, 96, 104

Tel el-Amarna, 100 et seq.

Tel-loh, 52

Temple, 226

Thahash (see Takhis)

Thothmes II., 81, 87

Thothmes III., 31, 37, 45, 58, 67,

72, 81 et seq.
Thothmes IV., 95
Tibhath, 187, 195
Tidal, 55, 60
Tidanum, 50, 53
Timnah, 190
Tin, 209
Tithes, 151

Tomkins, Mr., 31, 196
Trumbull, Dr., 33, 155
Tunanat, 114
Tunip, 86, 90, 95 et seq
Tut-ankh-Amon, 135

254

INDEX

Tyre, 36, 73, 107, no, in,
140, 188, 203, 210, 226

Ubeor Ubi, 114, 186
Ugarit, 91, 203
Ur, 56, 143, 246
Ur, dynasty of, 241
Urimelech, 242
Uru, 36, 63, 215
Usu, ill, 182 188, 203

Yabitiri, 130
Yabni-el, 106
Yahem {see Ihem), 198
Yahu (Yahveh), 247
Yamutbal, 59
Yankhamu, 131
Yapa-Hadad, 1 10
Yapakhi, 1 16
Yasdata, 117
Yerzeh, 130, 138, 198

136,

Yidya, 130

Yikhen-Khamu, 124, 126
Yisyara, 105

Zahi, 72, 89

Zakkal, 141

Zamzummim, 31, 33

Zedek, 65

Zelah, 120, 200

Zelem, 223

Zemar, 22, 45, 86, 109 et seq., 131

Zephath, 200

Zimrida or Zimridi, 105, 106, 110

et seq.
Zinzar, 114
Zion, 170
Zippor, 140
Zoan, 80, 146
Zorah, 119

Zurata or Saratum, 117
Zuzim, 30

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